There's a Method to This Madness
by Nenena
Summary: Ten short stories about Kid/Liz/Patti's relationships with their friends and family, written for 42 souls.
1. White Pines and Pedicures

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 01: White Pines and Pedicures ****  
**

Prompt: Dopamine ((troika+friends))

* * *

"That's the one," Liz said, pointing to the glossy photograph on the top right corner of the page. "The classic Beretta BM-59. It's got some kickback, but with your upper-body strength I think you'll be fine. It's the aim that I would worry about."

"Can I get one of those laser thingies?" Maka asked, flipping through the pages of the catalog in her lap eagerly. "You know, like they have in the movies? Those laser things that help you aim. What are they called?"

"Sights. They're called sights." Liz flipped her hair over her shoulder. "But those are basically cheating."

"I don't know if I would be comfortable with an automatic," Tsubaki said, taking the catalog from Maka and eyeing the page that she had opened critically. "Maybe not my first time."

"Normally they won't even let anybody start with an automatic, but for Shibusen students they make exceptions," Liz said. "You might as well take advantage of that. Automatics are more fun."

Tsubaki seemed hesitant. "I don't know…"

"I wouldn't recommend the Beretta if I didn't love it," Liz said. "It's Italian, so you know it's good. Patti and I usually go with the Beretta."

"But you said that usually go with Kid, right?" Maka frowned. "How does he even handle an automatic rifle? Wouldn't it make him asymmetrical?"

"No, because he uses a bipod every time he tries out a rifle," Liz said. "As long as he's lying down and using a bipod, he can position himself symmetrically. That wouldn't be true if he needed to look into the sight, but he never uses the sight. It's crazy. His eyesight is crazy good."

"Wait, they let you do that?" Maka asked. "They seriously have shooting range big enough to let Kid lie down with a bipod and an automatic?"

"Maka, please. This is White Pine. They have a grenade range _and _a rentable rocket launcher. They also stock nearly every kind of automatic or semi-automatic rifle ever made, and Kid has tried out nearly every one by now."

"You sound like you really like this place," Tsubaki commented, handing the gun catalog back to Maka. She shifted her body on top of Liz's bed, re-arranging her legs into a more comfortable position. Her pajama bottoms momentarily slid down her hips, but Tsubaki reached down and re-adjusted them demurely.

"We all do. That's why you guys have _got _to come with us next weekend," Liz said, pushing her sales pitch once again. She, Patti, and Kid had been taking trips down to White Pines Shooting Range in Ely, Nevada for years. The owner, and enormous bear of a man named Mel, would always let Patti throw as many grenades as she wanted to out on the range, and he never seemed frightened by her maniacal cackling either. Kid never questioned how exactly Mel had procured his vast array of weapons, and Mel never questioned Kid's age before handing him an M-16 Carbine to try out "just for fun." Liz loved the weight and heft of a Beretta in her arms, and she especially loved the relaxed, de-stressed feeling that she got after a good couple of hours spent blowing up targets. She loved being able to shoot at things without having to worry about the threat of monsters or demons trying to eat her.

Liz's two favorite ways to relax were shopping and shooting. She had dragged Maka and Tsubaki on plenty of shopping trips before, but she figured that the three of them – no, the four of them, including Patti – had not yet had a _proper _Girl's Night Out so long as they hadn't yet experienced the thrill of machine gun fire for fun.

"And Kid definitely won't be coming with us," Liz said again, trying to convince Tsubaki one more time. "I told him. Girl's Night Out. He's not allowed to come with us."

Maka laughed. "Just like how he's not allowed in intrude upon a Girl's Night In?"

"Yes. Just like now." Liz rolled over on her side again, reaching for her cell phone. "What is taking Patti so long?" she muttered to herself, flipping open the phone.

"Are you sure about letting Patti pick the movie?" Maka asked again, re-crossing her legs as she shifted position on top of her sleeping bag. "I mean, I know that we take turns and all, but… Well, Patti is a little…"

Liz stared at Maka.

"Never mind," Maka said.

"Fair's fair," Liz said. It was Patti's turn to go out and rent the movie while the rest of them stayed behind and got into their pajamas. Last month it had been Liz's turn. The night before that, it had been Tsubaki's turn. The four of them only got together for a Girl's Night In sleepover once per month, after all. They had to handle the movie thing in the fairest way possible.

Liz dialed Patti's number, and her sister answered on the second ring. "Hiiii, Liiiiiiiiiz!"

Liz imagined her sister waving enthusiastically, even though they were talking on the phone. "Patti, did you get the movie yet?"

"Ummmmmm, no."

"Are you at the rental store yet?"

"Yeah, but, ummmmm, I gotta question."

Liz sighed. "Yes, Patti?"

"Liz doesn't like scary movies, sooooooo…." Patti hummed to herself for a moment, before continuing. "Should Patti get a funny movie?"

"Yes, Patti, that would be great."

"Hey Liz, what's your favorite funny movie?"

"It's your choice tonight, Patti. It doesn't matter what my favorite comedy is."

"Oh. Okay! So Patti can get Patti's favorite funny movie!"

Liz suddenly realized that she didn't know what Patti's favorite funny movie _was. _Patti usually declared that every single movie that they watched was her favorite movie. "Patti, what exactly is-?"

"Aye aye, captain, roger over and out!" Patti suddenly hung up the phone.

Liz clicked her phone closed, then turned toward Maka, who was thumbing through the gun catalog again. "Okay, so, I was meaning to ask you," Maka said. "I need a new bookshelf in my room, and I want one like the one that Kid's got in the tea room downstairs-"

"Oh, that's German. I can get you the catalog. You'll have to put it together yourself, though. Unless you want to spend a fortune having an already-assembled one shipped from Europe."

"Can I borrow your tools?"

"You ought to see the power screwdriver that Kid used to put ours together. It's a Black and Decker and it is freakin' amazing," Liz said. "180 RPM, 6-position clutch, and it's got a torque of 70 inches per pound."

"In other words, Kid isn't going to let me borrow it," Maka said.

"He's not going to know that I let you borrow it," Liz countered.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Well, as long as we're borrowing some of Kid's nice things…" Tsubaki was brushing her hair as she spoke. "Liz, would he mind terribly if I borrowed your power sharpener?"

"For your kitchen knives?" Liz asked.

"No, actually. For me." Tsubaki flexed her arms. "Black Star always uses a sharpening block for me, but I've always wondered what a power sharpener would feel like."

"_Wow," _said Maka. "That sounds kind of kinky. Tsubaki, that might very well be the kinkiest thing that I have ever heard you say." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Now I kind of wonder what Soul would think about trying that."

Tsubaki blushed bright red. "Maka, I don't think-"

"I GOT A FUNNY MOVIE!" Patti exclaimed, suddenly bursting into the bedroom. Her cheeks and nose were bright red, and she was still wearing her shoes and coat. She had apparently run straight from the video store all the way back to Kid's house, then through the house, up the stairs, and all the way into Liz's bedroom without even pausing for a single breath. "I got the funniest movie ever _ever_!" Patti boasted, waving her prize around and grinning maniacally.

"Patti, shoes," Liz said.

"Oh. So~o~rry," Patti said, reaching down to remove her muddy shoes. Then she tossed them carelessly onto the carpet in Liz's room.

"Patti, coat," Liz added.

"Liiiiiiiz, you're worse than Kid!" Patti pouted.

"The sleepover's in my room," Liz said, "and you know the rules. No shoes and no coat in Liz's room."

Patti stuck her tongue out at her sister, even as she removed her coat.

"By the way, I invited Tsubaki and Maka to White Pines with us next weekend," Liz informed her sister, as Patti threw her coat on the floor of the hallway outside the door to Liz's room, then reached for her shoes to do the same. "No Kid. Girl's Day Out. Tsubaki and Maka are both coming, right?"

"I'll come," Tsubaki said.

"Count me in," Maka said. "Sounds like fun. If I'm going to get a Nevada driver's license then I probably need to get in touch with my inner redneck, anyway."

"Yaaaaaaaay!" Patti laughed, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. "We can all throw grenades with Patti! Yaaaaaaaaay!"

"You're getting a driver's license?" Liz asked Maka.

"Yup. Learner's permit. By the way, Liz…?"

"I can't be the licensed driver who rides around in the car with you, Maka. My license expired years ago."

Maka sighed. "You realize that means that my _only _other options are to beg Justin or my dad to sit in the shotgun seat while I drive? My _dad_, Liz. Ugh."

"Doesn't Soul have a license?" Tsubaki asked.

"No."

"But he rides a motorcycle."

"Yes, and he doesn't have a license for it. Or for anything. He keeps saying that he's too cool for driving school." Maka curled her lip with annoyance. "I, however, am going to do things properly. And eventually Soul is going to give a damn when he realizes that I have a real driver's license, and he doesn't, and that having a real driver's license makes me _that much cooler _than him."

"Even if it means driving around with your dad riding shotgun as long as you still have your learner's permit?" Liz asked.

"Or Justin. I could totally ask Justin to do it," Maka said, quickly.

"Patti, which movie did you get?" Tsubaki asked, changing the subject.

"The most funniest movie EVER!" Patti exclaimed again. Then she held out the DVD toward Tsubaki. "TA-DA!"

Liz actually flinched when she saw the DVD cover. "P-P-P-Patti!" she whimpered. "_Silence of the Lambs _is NOT a comedy!"

"Yes it is!" Patti insisted, laughing. "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose aga~in!" Patti sing-songed, cheerfully. "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose aga~in! It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets-"

"Patti, stop it!" Liz yelled, throwing a pillow at her sister for good measure.

"Yaaaaay, pillow fight!" Patti laughed and tossed the pillow that Liz had just thrown at her straight up into the air. The pillow bounced against the ceiling and somehow managed to smack Liz in the head as it came back down.

"Patti," Liz hissed, clutching the pillow tightly in order to prevent it from ending up back in Patti's hands, "Go back to the store and get a different movie!"

"Put you said that it was Patti's turn to pick the movie!"

"I told you to get a _comedy, _Patti, not a-"

"But this IS funny!" Patti pouted.

Liz turned to Tsubaki and Maka for help. Tsubaki jumped in to Liz's rescue, diplomatic as usual. "Patti," Tsubaki said, gently, "that movie scares Liz, so you should go return it. You don't want to scare your sister, do you?"

Patti looked down at her feet and frowned deeply, sticking out her tongue as her brow furrowed in deep thought. Liz realized that her sister was apparently deeply pondering whether she _did _care about whether Liz was scared of the movie or not. Liz sighed as she waited for Patti's answer. Then she heard footsteps from the floor above her bedroom. Liz wondered what exactly the boys were doing up there.

"What do you think the boys are up to?" Maka asked, echoing Liz's thoughts as she cast her eyes toward the ceiling. The boys were sleeping in one of the guest rooms on the floor above Liz's room. "They've been awfully quiet."

"I'm surprised that they didn't go out somewhere," Tsubaki said.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Maka asked.

Liz shrugged. "Meh. Probably stupid macho guy things."

* * *

"How do you do it? How do you _do _it? It's not fair," Soul complained, running his hands through Black Star's spiky hair for the third time this evening. "On most days when I get out of bed my hair looks like a bird's nest. It's so dry and ratty that I have to gel it halfway to hell and back before I can get it shaped into a decent style. How do you _do _it?" he asked again. "What shampoo do you use?"

"Does it matter what shampoo I use?" Black Star asked. "My hair is always great because _I'm _great!"

"It's the conditioner," Kid said, reaching out to smooth Black Star's hair that Soul had ruffled back into evenly-sized, perfectly symmetrical spikes. "You condition, don't you?" he asked Black Star. "It feels like you condition."

"Conditioner?" Soul snorted back a laugh. "So uncool. No freakin' way."

"Properly conditioning one's hair is essential in a dry climate like this," Kid insisted. "If you don't use conditioner, Soul, that's probably the reason why your hair is always such a wretched mess."

Soul glowered at Kid for a moment, angry at him for the backhanded insult. Fortunately, however, Soul appeared less inclined to pick a fight when he was in his boxers and already partially settled into his sleeping bag. Kid watched Soul's inevitable laziness eventually win out, smoothing his glower into a less severe expression of weary consternation. Finally, Soul apparently decided to let Kid's insult pass without comment, as next he decided to change the subject of the conversation. "So I've been meaning to ask you this, Kid, but what did you call that thing that you made for dinner tonight?"

"The brodetto?"

"Yeah, that. Can you give me a copy of the recipe? Maka's always been complaining about how I don't know any interesting ways to cook fish."

"I can make you a copy," Kid said. "I actually got that recipe from Al." He turned toward Black Star. "Do you remember Al?"

"Oh yeah, I think he came around here a few times," Black Star said. "He died what, five, six years ago?"

"Who's Al?" Soul asked.

"Alessandro. He was a Death Scythe. I remember that he only rarely met with Father here in Death City, since he was usually busy taking care of things in Europe. But he was a fantastic cook. I used to beg him to teach me his recipes."

Soul stared at Kid incredulously. "You were cooking six years ago?"

Kid shrugged. "Father was always incompetent in the kitchen. I was forced to take matters into my own hands at an early age."

"So with the brodetto," Soul said, "how did you make the onions that color?"

"The trick is to sauté the onions at the bottom of the pot together with the garlic and the parsley, wait until the onions turn translucent, then add the wine and the tomato paste. The fish is added to the pot last. But you have to start with the onions."

"It was pretty good stuff," Black Star said, as he kicked his legs around inside his sleeping bag, trying to get settled. Eventually he gave up and swung his legs out of the sleeping bag, flopping them down comfortably on top of it. "Not as good as anything that Tsubaki has ever made, but still pretty good. We should do this dinner and sleepover thing more often."

"We don't have to do this at my house every time," Kid pointed out.

"Yes we do," Black Star insisted. "You're the rich guy with the biggest house and the biggest kitchen and the biggest dining room and the biggest flatscreen TV with a DVD player in the biggest guest bedroom out of all of us. We're going to keep doing this at your house."

Kid nodded. "You do have a point," he conceded. He ran his fingers absent-mindedly around the collar of his silk pajamas, making sure that it was properly folded over and perfectly symmetrical. Soul and Black Star were messy, and Kid didn't particularly like having them in his home overnight. As long as he stayed with them both in the guest bedroom on the upper floor, however, he could minimize their potential for destroying the cleanliness and sanctity of his house. Liz liked to get on his case for not allowing Soul and Black Star to sleep in _his _room – after all, she let the girls sleep over in _her _bedroom – but Kid still would never allow it. Liz and Patti were the only human beings who were ever allowed into Kid's bedroom, end of story. That was the one rule that Kid absolutely refused to compromise on.

Fortunately, however, neither Soul nor Black Star seemed to mind at all that they slept with Kid in a guest bedroom, especially since the guest bedroom on the upper floor of the mansion was equipped with the enormous flatscreen TV and brand new DVD player, as Black Star had pointed out.

"Speaking of the TV," Soul said, "are you guys ready to start the movie?"

"Absolutely," Kid said, as he reached behind himself to properly center the pillow that would be supporting his back throughout the movie. Then his eyes suddenly fell upon Black Star, and his heart leapt in his chest. "Wait, Soul, wait! Hold on!"

Soul froze in the middle of reaching for the remote control. Kid scrambled over toward Black Star, kneeling at the end of Black Star's sleeping bag and grabbing at Black Star's bare feet. "Black Star, what did you do to your _feet_?"

Black Star looked as if he suddenly regretted having pulled his legs out of his sleeping bag and exposing his feet to Kid's sight. "Uh, nothing. What's your problem now?"

"Look at this! Just _look _at this!" Kid pointed angrily at the big toe on Black Star's left foot. "What did you do to your toenail? The curvature is off-center! It's not a symmetrical arc anymore!"

Black Star stared at Kid, his jaw hanging open. Then, finally, he managed to say, "Was it symmetrical before?"

"Yes, it was. You've always had perfectly symmetrical feet, Black Star. And symmetrical toenails. I wouldn't even allow you to be barefoot inside my house if such were not the case."

"How come you noticed this and I didn't?" Black Star asked. "Since when were you _looking _at my amazing feet?"

"This is getting creepy," Soul said. "Also, Kid, it is really uncool for you to be judging our feet like that. Just saying." Suddenly his eyes lit up. "Oh my God. In gym class. Were you looking at our feet while we were showering in gym class?"

"I have to fix your nail," Kid told Black Star feverishly, utterly ignoring Soul's comment. "This is unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. I can't let you ruin the perfect symmetry of your toenails like this!" Kid dropped Black Star's foot and stood up quickly. "Hold still, I'll be right back."

Kid ran out of the room, and returned a few moments later armed with files of varying coarseness as well as several sterilized clippers of various shapes and sizes. Black Star was still sitting on top of his sleeping bag, staring up at Kid with an expression of (ungrateful, thankless) horror on his face. "Are you… Are you seriously going to file my toenail right now?" Black Star asked.

"Of course I am. I can't concentrate on the movie so long as I know that your toenail isn't curved correctly," Kid said, grabbing Black Star's foot again.

Black Star laughed. "If you're going to give me a pedicure, you might as well paint my toenails while you're at it."

Kid stared at Black Star. "Ah, you're right," he said. "What color would you prefer?"

"I was joking."

"You were?" Kid felt confused.

"You know, Black Star," Soul said, a toothy grin on his face, "Tsubaki _did _say that she wants you to put more effort into your appearance. You should let Kid paint your toenails."

Black Star matched Soul's evil grin with a devilish one of his own. "Only if you get yours painted to, _buddy_. No way am I going to be the only dude in the locker room with painted toenails."

Kid felt as if he were missing out on some sort of joke, but he didn't care so long as Black Star wasn't struggling as he carefully worked on filing the toenail on Black Star's big toe into a perfectly symmetrical curve. "I can do Soul's toenails, too," Kid said. "What color do you want? Liz has a polish in every shade imaginable."

"I think that you should paint Soul's toenails bright red," Black Star said, "to match his _gorgeous_ eyes."

"I think that you should paint Black Star's signature on every single one of his toenails," Soul quickly added, not to be outdone in the embarrassing suggestion department.

Kid nodded solemnly, agreeing to both ideas. "Black Star, I can do a five-pointed star on each of your toenails, but I would rather not attempt your full signature including your name, as that would render the design asymmetrical. Also, that would be tacky. But ten five-pointed stars on your feet, one on each of your toenails…" Kid sighed dreamily, already imagining the many patterns of gorgeous symmetry that would soon be present on Black Star's already perfectly symmetrical feet. "That would be lovely."

"Holy damn. I can't believe I'm letting you do this to me." Black Star threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine, fine! Paint my toenails! But can you at least do that while we're watching the movie?"

"Now that I've fixed the curvature of your nail, yes, we can start the movie," Kid said.

Black Star turned to Soul. "So what did you choose this time?"

Soul reached for the remote control again. "I got exactly what you told me to get," he said.

Black Star grinned. "So you got a movie that was, and I quote my amazing self here, 'badass awesome' and about martial arts and involving lots of boobs?"

Kid rolled his eyes. "What fine parameters for a movie choice that we've decided upon."

"Check, check, and check," Soul said, as he used the remote to turn on the DVD player. "You guys are going to like this one. Trust me."

Suddenly Kid heard the distinct sound of Liz screaming, and a thudding sound as something – possibly a pillow thrown with extreme force – thumped against the floor below them. Kid supposed that meant that Patti had returned from the video store. He stood up and walked over toward Soul, kneeling down and preparing his supplies to work on Soul's feet. He had to make sure that Soul's toenails were perfectly trimmed and shaped before he could even begin to think about painting them, of course.

"Was that the girls down there?" Soul asked, staring down at the floor.

"That sounded like Liz, yes," Kid agreed.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Soul wondered out loud.

Black Star laced his hands behind his head, leaned back, and said, "Eh, probably just a bunch of stupid girly things."

Soul finally pressed the Play button on the remote control, and the swelling orchestral crescendo of the Universal Pictures sunrise sequence filled the bedroom, immediately followed by the opening of _Bring It On. _


	2. Night of the Macaroons

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 02: Night of the Macaroons **

Prompt: Dark ((troika+Death))

* * *

The sound of crashing metal awoke Kid with a start. That, and Liz's ear-splitting scream. Kid had barely managed to open his eyes when he felt Liz clutching at his shoulders. "Kiiiiiiiiiiiid!" she hissed. "Did you hear that?"

"Izzit a ghost?" Patti asked, yawning sleepily. "Sounds kinda like a ghost."

"No no no no no no no no!" Liz whimpered, practically clawing at Kid now. "Not in our freakin' house! There had better not be a ghost in _our _freakin' house!" She shivered with terror. "Oh please God, please let it be a serial killer or a rapist or _something, _please please please God, anything but a ghost!"

"It's not a ghost," Kid said, struggling to disentangle himself from Liz's grip. This was somewhat difficult as they were both still lying down in bed. Finally, however, Kid managed to free himself from Liz's arms, and sat up. "It's just-"

More crashing metal clanged together downstairs. Liz shrieked again.

Kid sighed, already imagining the absolute mess that the kitchen would probably be in. "It's not a ghost," he repeated, wishing that Liz would remember that he had the ability to perceive souls, and that when he had said _It's not a ghost_ the first time, he had known what he was talking about. Really, there was no need for any more screaming now.

"So what is it?" Patti asked, also sitting up beside Kid in the bed.

"It's Father," Kid said. "He's downstairs in the kitchen. I have no idea why."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Liz growled, her terror from moments before completely gone, replaced already with an impatient grumpiness. "It's two o'clock in the morning. What the hell is he doing here?"

"I told you, I don't know."

"Then go downstairs and find out!" Liz huffed at Kid. "And tell him not to _ever _sneak into our house in the middle of the night and scare us again like that, okay?"

"Liz, please do not be disrespectful to my father."

"I'm not being disrespectful. I'm asking _you _to whack some common sense into his big black head."

"All right, all right," Kid said, removing himself from between Liz and Patti, hopping out of the bed, and throwing on a robe and his slippers. "I will speak to Father about this. I would like to remind you, however, that my father has the absolute right to come into this house at any time that he pleases."

"Does he have the absolute right to mess up your kitchen, though?" Liz asked.

Kid winced as the sound of more crashing metal echoed through the house. "He does not," Kid said, conceding Liz's point. "I trust that my father would not be here without a good reason, however. Let me sort this out with him."

"I'm _telling _you to sort this out with him," Liz grumped. "Now get going!"

Kid finished tying his robe with a knot in the exact center of his body, then stepped out of the bedroom and headed down toward the kitchen. He could already hear Patti snoring again as he was climbing down the stairs. Whatever unfathomable crisis had caused God himself to descend upon Kid's kitchen in the middle of the night, it was clearly of no concern to Patti, at least not of any amount of concern enough to warrant her staying awake to see the resolution of the mystery. Once again, Kid found himself admiring – and envying – Patti's laid-back attitude.

Kid himself, however, could not afford to be unconcerned, especially not when his honorable father was clearly busy messing up his meticulous, impeccable, perfect kitchen!

Kid stepped into said kitchen and nearly tripped over a roasting pan that had been tossed to the floor. More pots and pans littered the floor, having been removed carelessly from the cupboards beneath the island in the middle of the kitchen. Kid flipped on a light switch and saw his father looming in front of the dish cabinets, trying to push aside the front most dishes with his enormous hands in order to peer behind them, but mostly succeeding in pushing them all out of sorts, sending them rolling or sliding every which way until one inevitably slid out of the cupboard and clattered to the floor. Amazingly, the plate didn't break. If it had broken, Kid likely would have burst into tears. As it was, however, Kid could only look at the chaotic mess in his kitchen and feel rage and disgust twisting in his stomach.

"Oopsies," Death said. Then he turned toward Kid. "Oh good, there you are!"

Kid rubbed at his eyes, if only to disguise the fact that he was momentarily contemplating patricide, and he was afraid that his father would see his homicidal thoughts reflected in the windows to his soul. "Father, what are you looking for?" he asked.

"Coconuts. Where do you keep the coconuts, Kid?"

Kid stared at his father. "We don't have any coconuts." Then he put on his best glower. "And why are you looking for coconuts in the dish cupboards?"

"Well, because there weren't any in the refrigerator. What do you mean, you don't have any coconuts?"

"It's really not something that we keep around the house," Kid said. He stepped around his father and started to pick up the baking pans that had been tossed all over the floor. He forced himself to swallow a rude comment about his father being unacceptably messy. True though the statement might be, Kid still couldn't bring himself to disrespect his father like that. Also, Kid didn't want to be unfair – after all, it wasn't his father's fault that he had such enormous hands.

Kid's father clasped said enormous hands dramatically. "You don't keep coconuts around? Not even in case of an emergency?" He shook his head. "What kind of a son am I raising?" he muttered.

Kid finished gathering the baking pans in his hands, and straightened up. "Father, I fail to understand exactly what sort of crisis would constitute a coconut-based emergency."

"Macaroons!" Death exclaimed. Then he stopped, apparently feeling no need to explain further.

"Father, what are you talking about?"

"Macaroons!" Death repeated. "I need to whip up a batch of two dozen macaroons before eight o'clock tomorrow morning!"

Kid stared at his father.

Then he blinked, slowly. Then he rubbed at his eyes again. Then he frowned. He scratched his right ear, then scratched his left ear for the sake of symmetry. Then Kid took a deep, slow breath. Then he said to his father, "Father, are you really trying to make two dozen macaroons because you want to eat two dozen macaroons, or are you trying to make two dozen macaroons because you want to use them as props in an elaborate visual pun that you're planning to spring on the Archbishop of Macedonia when he shows up for his appointment with you in the Death Room at eight o'clock tomorrow morning?"

Death reached out and ruffled his son's head affectionately. "You're so smart, Kid! You're just the cutest, smartest little reaper ever!"

Kid managed to step away from his father before those enormous hands could move on to pinching his cheeks. "But Father, as I have told you, we don't have the necessary ingredients for macaroons in this kitchen. I'm sorry, but I don't have any coconuts. And it is perhaps just as well," Kid went on. "Personally, I would advise abandoning the macaroon pun and trying for something macadamia-related instead. Save the macaroons for the next time that we get a visitor from Cameroon."

"Hmmmmm." Kid's father contemplated this advice seriously. "You indeed have a point." Then the eyes in his mask of a face crinkled with joy, and he clasped his hands and bounced up and down with glee. "Oooooooh, my son is going to make such a perfect death god someday!"

Kid could not stop a small smile from tugging at the corners of his lips. "Thank you, Father."

"What was your silly old father thinking?" Death went on, gushing. "And here I was panicking about not being able to make macaroons tonight, when all I really needed to do was make some chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies instead!" He looked down at Kid expectantly. "Chocolate chip macadamia nut. Cookies. Instead."

Kid sighed. "Go sit down over there," he told his father, pointing toward the kitchen table on the other side of the center island, "and give me some room to work." He tied on an apron on top of his robe.

"My son is so cute when he gives orders!" Death gushed, flopping his strange black body down in one of the kitchen table chairs.

"Don't play the 'cute' card with me, Father," Kid said, as he began measuring out flour and sugar into a mixing bowl. "This was your evil plot all along, wasn't it?"

"Well, there's nobody in the world who can make a cookie as perfectly as my adorable son can!" Death said, cheerfully. "Also, Spirit was too drunk to do my baking for me tonight." The Grim Reaper watched Kid working for a few moment, twiddling his enormous, strangely-shaped thumbs. Then he asked, "Uh, Kid? So how long are these cookies going to take?"

"Oh, well, I've been working on improving my speed in this matter," Kid said. "The last time that I baked two dozen chocolate chip cookies, Liz timed me at seven hours, fifty-three minutes, and thirteen seconds." He turned toward his father and beamed. "I'm going to do better this time, though. You'll be proud of me, Father."

" 'Do better' meaning what, exactly?"

Kid's eyes shone with manic glee. "This time I'm going to finish in _exactly _eight hours!" He placed his hand over his heart. "I swear I won't let you down, Father!"

Death glanced at the kitchen clock. "Kid, we only have six hours until-"

"Call the Archbishop and tell him that we will be delayed until ten o'clock," Kid said, already having begun the task of meticulously counting the hundreds of chocolate chips that he was about to divide evenly among exactly twenty-four cookies. "I will not lower my standards, Father, especially not for a visiting foreign dignitary. It would be unseemly for you to attempt to pun him with imperfect cookies."

Death sighed dramatically. "It isn't fair, is it?" he commented, wistfully.

"What isn't fair?"

"You understand me so well, Kid. But there are times when I fear that I may never understand you."

Kid turned toward his father, his brow furrowed with confusion. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." Death shook his head. "You just go ahead and concentrate on your baking, Kid."

"I won't let you down, Father," Kid repeated.

"I know you won't," Death said. Even though he had no mouth, his soul was still smiling.


	3. Beelzebub Wants to Fly

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 03: Beelzebub Wants to Fly**

Prompt: Skyward ((troika+beelzebub))

* * *

Patti had a perfect riding stance. Her feet were placed at the proper angles, her weight balanced just right. Kid let go of her hips, and stood back. "Are you sure you've never done this before?"

"Nope, never." Patti shifted her weight slightly, making Beelzebub roll back and forth across the ground. "Seen you do it a million times, though. Been with you when you did a million times. _Felt_ you do it a million times."

"...Right. Okay."

"So now what?" Patti asked.

"Push off. Take your back foot, swing it out in front, and- like this," Kid said, demonstrating with his own feet.

Patti laughed at him, likely because he looked stupid miming the action. Then she pushed with her foot, rolled forward for a distance, and managed to stop without falling off. "Can Patti fly now?"

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Beelzebub trembled impatiently beneath Patti's feet. "Beelzebub wants to fly," Patti pointed out.

Kid could see that well enough. He knew that the poor thing hated rolling on the ground. The ground was dirty and covered in germs, after all. That was why Beelzebub insisted on flying all the time. But Kid knew that Beelzebub preferred a precise, orderly riding style, and he was nervous about the idea of a chaotic soul like Patti's taking the stubborn, persnickety skateboard into the sky. That could end in disaster. "Patti, I still don't think-"

"It's okay. It likes me." Patti smiled down at the skateboard. "Don't you?"

Beelzebub lifted slightly off the ground in response. Patti laughed with delight. "See?"

Kid didn't see. He walked over toward them quickly, suddenly deciding that it would be best to stop Beelzebub before it launched itself too high into the air. He trusted Patti with the skateboard, but he still didn't entirely trust the skateboard with Patti. "Here's a thought," he said. "If you want to fly, let me ride with you." He hopped onto the skateboard, entwining his stance with Patti's, grabbing onto her hips. They both wobbled for a bit, then found their balance. "This will be safer."

"Two people on one skateboard isn't very safe," Patti pointed out. But Kid could hear the amusement in her voice.

Kid wrapped his arms completely around her, holding her close. "It's okay. We've got good balance."

Beelzebub suddenly launched into the air, fast enough to actually startle Patti. She sucked in her breath sharply, then laughed as the wind began to whip at the both of them, threatening to push them off the skateboard. But Kid leaned in close to her and shouted over the wind, "I won't let you fall!"

"I know!" Patti threw her arms out. "_Whooooo-hoooooo!_ I'm an airplane! Zooooooom zooooooom!"

Her shouting earned a momentarily startled look from the sun, who then went back blinking lazily at nothing in particular as it slowly lowered in the sky. Patti laughed and waved at the sun, but it now seemed rather determined to ignore her. She leaned back into Kid and shouted in his ear, "Let's go somewhere!"

"Anywhere you want."

"_Penguins!_"

"What?"

"Kid likes penguins, right?"

"I feel rather neutral on the subject of penguins," Kid said, "but I have a particular fondness for the south of Argentina."

"Yaaaaaay! Let's go!"

Kid leaned back, pulling Patti with him, turning Beelzebub to point due south. As they sped through the sky, Kid realized that the winds whipping against him didn't feel nearly as cold as they usually did. That must have been because Patti felt so warm, pressed and balanced against him.

Kid rested his head against her shoulder and allowed himself to smile. Flying with her felt good, especially when he felt her laughter rumbling through her body and vibrating against him. He wouldn't mind doing this again someday, he thought. Maybe even often.


	4. Exactly What it Looks Like

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 04: Exactly What it Looks Like**

Prompt: Metallic ((troika+Death+Deathscythe))

* * *

Death lived for centuries before he finally figured out how to make a mirror ring.

He only bothered to figure out how to do so because it finally became a necessity. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the humans like to say.

He used to ring up the mirrors in his home – now Kid's home – without warning. It wasn't as though he was being obtrusive, though. He rarely called Kid at all. He rarely called anybody at all. Mostly, everybody else – his adorable son included – just called _him _when something required his attention. But there were moments when Death needed to speak to Kid, so there were times when Death had to call Kid at home. Kid didn't mind. He never said that he minded. When Kid was at home it wasn't as if he had anything better to do than to pay attention to what his father wanted, anyway. Why would Death need to give a warning ring before he called? The idea that such a thing might be needed had simply never crossed the Grim Reaper's mind.

At least, that was the case until the fateful day that Death called Kid at home and discovered the reason why a warning ring might be needed.

It was the middle of the day. Three in the afternoon, to be exact. Kid should have been in classes, or in training. Death hadn't expected his son to be home, but he had wanted to check at home anyway, just in case. A quick dial of the mirror and Death was connected, every mirror in Kid's home instantly opened to his eyes. He found Kid and Liz immediately and zoomed in on them. "Hey hey hey WAZZZZZUUUUUP?" Death greeted them cheerfully.

Kid and Liz stared at him – or rather, stared at the mirror in which they could see Death's visage – in wide-eyed horror.

"What's wrong?" Death asked. "Am I interrupting something?"

"_F-F-F-Father!" _Kid gasped. "This isn't what it looks like!"

"Hmmmm. I kind of hope that this _is _exactly what it looks like," Death answered thoughtfully, "because if it's _not _what it looks like, then I might be worried."

"Oh for fuck's _sake!_" Liz screamed, throwing a pillow at the mirror. "Stop _looking _at us, you pervert! _What the hell is wrong with you?"_

Death scratched his head, confused. "But I have no objection to-"

"Stop _staring _at me!" Liz screamed again. Then she scrambled at the covers of the bed, as if grabbing for something to cover herself with. The bed was made, however, and Kid was lying on top of the comforter, which left Liz with nothing to grab. Finally, Liz dove behind the far side of the bed, away from the mirror. She crouched behind the bed so that Death couldn't see anything more than her head. "Kid, tell your dad to close his goddamn eyes!"

Kid was now left completely exposed to his father's baffled gaze. "I can't _tell _if his eyes are closed," Kid snapped, struggling against his restraints but unable to free himself. "Patti, the keys! Get me the keys!"

"No. Bad pet!" Patti snapped, crawling onto the bed and into Death's view. She straddled Kid, crushing the lacy pleats of his skirt, and smacked him hard on both sides of his face with her feather duster. "Pet doesn't speak unless spoken to!"

"Patti, _Father is looking at us-"_

"Does pet want another spanking?" Patti sneered.

"_Snickerdoodle!_" Kid practically screamed. "_Snickerdoodle, dammit Patti, SNICKERDOODLE!"_

"Yaaaaay, spanky time!" Patti laughed, lifting up one of Kid's legs, exposing the lacy garter that he was wearing while also rendering him completely assymmetrical, and drawing back her hand to smack at his ass.

"No, Patti!" Liz hissed. "That was the safety word!"

"Huh?" Patti froze with her hand still drawn to strike. "Really?"

"Patti, undo my handcuffs _right now!_" Kid snarled. Somehow Kid managed to sound menacing even when Patti had one of his legs lifted in the air and his French maid's headband was falling over his eyes. Death felt a momentary surge of pride at his adorable son's ability to be intimidating even in the most compromising of circumstances.

Patti, however, was not intimidated. "But Kid said that Patti could spank him!" she whined. "Patti wants spanky time!"

"Patti, get down here!" Liz said, grabbing at her sister and trying to pull her behind the bed with her. "Kid's pervert father is staring at you!"

"No, Patti, wait, you have to undo my handcuffs first!" Kid protested.

"Kid's daddy is here?" Patti swiveled her head toward the mirror, then grinned. "HIIIIIIII MR. REAPER!" she waved enthusiastically. "Are you lookin' at Patti's boo-boos?"

"God_dammit_, Patti!" Liz nearly screamed. She leapt back on top of the bed just long enough to grab her sister in a death-grip, then immediately dragged Patti off the bed and back to her hiding spot, where the two of them were blocked from Death's line of sight. "Remember what your sister said? Don't show your boo-boos to perverts!"

"You're a pervert," Patti pointed out. Death could only see the top of her head as she crouched behind the bed with her sister. "And so is Kid. But you said that it was okay for Kid to see Patti's boo-boos."

"Patti, that's not what I-"

"Don't _leave me _like this!" Kid yelled at the both of them, digging his pointy heels into the comforter and struggling to free himself from the handcuffs again. His struggles had left his hair disheveled, his headband falling halfway off his head, and maid uniform quite wrinkled. Kid's lacy skirt, which Liz had previously lifted up to expose his swollen erection, somehow managed to flutter every which way as he kicked, except the way that would have caused it to cover his erection again.

Death didn't understand why his son was struggling. Surely Kid was strong enough to break the handcuffs on his own, wasn't he? And he looked so cute in the maid uniform, especially with the lacy garter belt and the high heels! "That's such a cute uniform!" Death said to Kid, cheerfully. "Did you sew it yourself?"

"_Father, stop looking at me!"_

"Okey-dokey." Death looked away from the mirror for a moment, gazing around the Death Room until he found what he was looking for. "Ah, Spirit, there you are!" Death said, as he saw his weapon striding through the gates into the Death Room. "I was just about to call you. You have _got _to see this!"

Spirit hurried his stride, quickly jogging toward Death. "Is something the matter?" he asked, the alarm on his face obvious.

"Look look look!" Death said, pointing Spirit's gaze toward his mirror. "Isn't that just adorable?"

"Ack!" Spirit clamped his hands over his eyes.

"_Eeeeeeeek!_" Liz screamed, at the same time. She had taken the risk of crawling back on top of the bed with the handcuff key clutched in her hand, momentarily exposing her nude body in a last-ditch attempt to free Kid. As soon as she saw Spirit in the mirror, however, she screamed and dove back behind the bed.

Patti stood up and waved her feather duster, her nude breasts bouncing cheerfully as she did so. "HIIIIIII, MR. ALBARN!"

"Oh, for the love of-!" Kid apparently was panicked enough to finally remember that he had god-like strength. He grit his teeth, pulled with all his might, and finally managed to free himself. He didn't free his wrists and he didn't break the handcuffs, but he did succeed in breaking the newel posts that he was cuffed to clean off the bed. The broken newel posts clattered to the ground as Kid dove behind the bed to join Liz and Patti, the handcuffs still dangling from his wrists.

"Oooooooh, Kid broke the bed!" Patti gasped. "He's gotta get spanked now!"

Kid tore the headband off his head and glowered at his father. He crouched low behind the bed, as low as Liz and Patti were, so that Death couldn't see any more than his head and neck. Death didn't understand why Kid felt the need to hide himself like that. Unlike Liz and Patti, Death's son was fully clothed in his lacy maid uniform. "Father, stop enticing Mr. Albarn into inappropriate behaviors!"

"Yeah, stop enticing-" Spirit froze in mid-breath. Then he gasped, "Are you still _looking _at them?"

"Oh, but just _look _at them!" Death said. He thought that Spirit, of all people, should be one to appreciate the marvelous sight on the other side of the mirror. "Look at my son's sex life! I can't believe he actually _has _one!"

"Are you insane?" Spirit flailed blindly, attempting to block Death's eyes with his hands while still keeping his own eyes squeezed tightly shut. "He told you to stop looking, so that means stop looking! You can't just stare at your kids when they're having sex, that's _sick!_"

"But they weren't having sex when I called," Death pointed out. "If I had to describe it, I would say that it appeared as though Liz was about to engage Kid in some combination of roleplay and foreplay-"

"Stop telling me about your kid's sex life!" Spirit said, still flailing blinding toward Death's mask. "He's your _son_! You have to respect his privacy!"

"Oh, I see," Death said. He sometimes felt a bit confused about the whole parenting thing, which was why he often turned to Spirit for advice in that arena. "Wait a minute," Death suddenly said. "Is this one of those parenting things that I'm doing wrong again? Is there something that I'm supposed to be doing right now that I'm forgetting?" Death scratched his head with his enormous hand. "Wait, I know! This is the part where I'm supposed to threaten Liz with a shotgun in case she intends to get Kid pregnant, isn't it?"

Spirit's jaw dropped. Then he shook his head, as if recovering his wits, and said, "No no no no! You have that backwards – er, in more than one way actually – B-b-b-but! That's not the issue right now! Listen listen listen you've got to STOP LOOKING at them because whether that's your kid or not he's still entitled to his privacy and anyway those girls are underage and I think it might actually be illegal for you to be seeing them naked, or something!"

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but you should listen to Mr. Albarn," Kid said, still crouching behind the bed on the other side of the mirror. "Father, please."

"Yeah, really," Liz added. "When Maka's dad is being the voice of reason, then you know that you're really doing something wrong."

Death pondered this inarguable truth as Spirit's hands finally smacked over the eyeholes of his mask. Death easily pushed Spirit aside with an annoyed swipe his giant hand. Then he nodded solemnly to his son, still crouching behind the bed on the other side of the mirror, and said, "I understand, Kid. You are old enough to make your own decisions, therefore if you request privacy about these matters, I will respect your decision."

"And look, you're still staring at us!" Liz hissed at Death. "If you want to call us, why can't you just call us on the phone like a normal person?"

Before Death could answer Liz's question, however, Kid turned toward her and answered for him. "My father can't use telephones. His fingers are too big."

"Oh, bullshit," Liz snapped back. "There's got to be somebody out there who can make a giant phone for God."

"Where would I put a giant phone?" Death asked, shrugging his pointy shoulders. He couldn't keep such a silly thing in the Death Room, after all. It would completely destroy the ambiance.

"The thing about phones, though," Liz explained, turning her head back toward the mirror, "is that they ring. They ring to give you warning when somebody is calling you. And they ring so that you can have a choice – you can answer a call, but you don't _have _to answer it, see? If you're busy, you can just let it ring, and eventually it will stop ringing and you can leave a message. And that's the thing about phones, okay? You can choose to answer it or not."

Death crossed his arms over his chest. "No, no, no," he said. "Kid is a god. He doesn't get to _choose _whether to answer a call or not, especially when there's a problem. He doesn't get to choose any more than I do."

"Hmmmmmmm," Patti said, pondering this.

"He's right, Liz," Kid said quietly.

"I know, baby. I know." Liz reached out and brushed a strand of Kid's disheveled hair from his cheek. "You don't get to choose, and we don't get to choose. Believe me, I know." Then she turned toward the mirror again. "But could we at least have a warning when you call, at least? Just a warning to make ourselves decent, in case we need to make ourselves decent."

"So you still want something that rings," Death said.

"Yes. That would be nice."

"Hmm hmm." Death pondered for a moment, then said, "I suppose I could make the mirror ring for you."

"Do you know how to do that?" Kid asked.

"No problemo," Death said, cheerfully. "From now on, you get a three-ring warning. But only three rings. Got it?"

Kid nodded. "That seems fair."

"I can undo a pair of handcuffs _and _put on a robe in less than three rings," Liz bragged.

"So how come Kid's dad is calling us right now?" Patti suddenly asked.

"Oh. That's right." Kid glared up at his father. "What is the matter, Father? Why did you have to call us today? Is there some sort of emergency that you need for us to attend to?"

"Oh, no no no no! Nothing of the sort!" Death waved his enormous hands, dismissing his son's concerns. "In fact, none of the three of you are going to be attending to any emergencies for a long, long time." The eyes of Death's mask of a face narrowed angrily. "I heard about what happened at Notre Dame, Kid. Justin Law informed me _and _I saw it on the DNN news."

"Oh," said Kid, in a very, very small voice.

"Bu~sted!" Patti laughed.

"I appreciate that you took care of the gargoyle infestation like I asked you to," Death went on. "However, you understand that your subsequent destruction of the cathedral requires appropriate punishment, yes?"

Kid slammed his face down onto the wrinkled comforter on top of his own bed and groaned.

"Grounded for eight weeks," Death began, ticking off on his enormous fingers. "Your technician status is officially suspended. I'm confiscating Beelzebub. Liz, Patti, any gargoyle souls that you collected no longer count toward your accumulated total. In addition, Kid, I feel that I should inform you that the Mayor of Paris, the Prime Minister of France, and the resurrected zombie of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll have requested permission to visit Death City so that they may all personally take turns stabbing you with various types of culinary equipment. I'm negotiating with them to see if they will accept an invitation to spank you instead."

"Ummm, but Kid likes getting spanked," Patti pointed out.

"Yes. Well. I can see that, now. So I suppose it will have to be stabbing after all," Death said. "That's probably the only way that the Cavaillé-Coll zombie will be able to find peace, anyway."

"I hate zombies," Kid groaned, his face still buried in the comforter.

"I'll be calling again later tonight," Death said, "after I've spoken with the Cavaillé-Coll zombie and worked out a date and time for his revenge. I promise to make the mirror ring this time, though!" Death held up one of his hands and waved cheerfully at the three of them. "Toodle-loo!"

From that day onward, Death was always very careful to make the mirrors ring whenever he called his son at home. As it turned out, it wasn't that difficult to make a mirror ring after all. Death was pleased to discover that the sound of a ringing mirror was a deliciously eerie, coldly metallic sound. So perfectly fitting for Death, he thought to himself happily.

Death never did find out who had sewn Kid's adorable maid uniform, though. Spirit eventually convinced him that it would be inappropriate to ask about the matter again.

* * *

_._

_A/N: Four more fics will be uploaded next week. Next up! "The Scythe, the Gun, and the Smiling Tummy."  
_


	5. The Scythe, the Gun, the Smiling Tummy

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 05: The Scythe, the Gun, and the Smiling Tummy**

Prompt: Happy ((troika+scythe))

* * *

They were both so _stupid _sometimes. No, a lot of the time. It was always such tiny, trivial little things would send either of them into hysterics. What was the saying that Maka used? _At the drop of a hat. _Yep, that was it. A tilted picture frame and Kid would be a nervous wreck. A cold draft in the house, and Liz would be convinced that a poltergeist was looking to eat her. A butcher's knife sliced through Patti's stomach, and suddenly they were both freaking out like it was the end of the _world _or something.

Tiny, trivial little things.

It was just a flesh wound.

She hadn't died. She hadn't even been close to dying. The desperate, cornered bastard who'd lashed out at her had gotten what he deserved. And the slippery, slimy feeling of her intestines spilling through her hands had reminded Patti of spaghetti and that had made her laugh.

It _was_ funny. Patti couldn't help but laugh. But Kid and Liz, as usual, had not appreciated the absurd humor of the situation.

And then Patti had gotten stitched up, just like a teddy bear! And Patti had gotten the happy-drinks that made the pain go away and that made even Liz's hysterical sobbing seem a thousand times more hilarious than it probably should have been. And ice cream! And flowers! Everybody was giving her flowers. And stuffed animals! She'd scored a teddy bear of nearly every color in the rainbow by the time that her tummy began to heal. And her scar! It was like her tummy was always smiling now. That pretty, puckered smile was right smack dab in the center of her body, too – not to mention evenly curved on both sides.

Serial killers always did the best knife work.

Patti didn't understand why Kid didn't _love _her scar.

_Evisceration _was a neat word. It had five syllables. That meant five hand-claps.

The bad part was the yelling. Kid and Liz both yelling at her, over and over again, even as they were crying like big stupid crybabies. They called Patti _stupid _and screamed things like _what were you thinking? _at her face. They'd been screaming at her even as her spaghetti-guts had spilled through her hands, even as she had laughed at the pain, even as she had laughed at the way that they were both _totally overreacting _to the problem. And much later, when he was done being a crybaby about it, Kid had come to her and yelled at her again, demanding to know why she had leapt back into her human form before the kill was finished, and Patti had looked at him and said, _No reason not to._

Because she hadn't been afraid.

Kid and Liz had been with her, and she hadn't been afraid.

She still didn't see any reason to be afraid. See? She hadn't died. She was fine. Now her tummy was always smiling and she had an entire army of rainbow-colored teddy bears to decorate her room with. Everything had turned out just fine.

_Evisceration _had five syllables. That meant five hand-claps. Say it twice and you got ten hand claps. Patti made a song, singing and clapping. She didn't understand why Kid didn't like her song.

_Disembowelment _was also a five-clap word. But not so good for making songs.

Patti got to eat mashed potatoes, milkshakes, and ice cream. Scrambled eggs for breakfast, but no bacon. Stupidhead doctors were worried about her eating, but she was _fine, _totally _fine. _Patti's tummy was magic, after all. If she could eat souls, then she could eat ice cream, right? And they'd gotten most of her spaghetti-guts back into her tummy all right. Not all of them, but most of them. Patti supposed that she had Kid and her sister to thank for that, because even though they'd been falling apart at least they'd done the first aid parts right. They were Shibusen students, they'd been trained well. Even Patti remembered her first aid lessons. It had been one of the few classes that she'd ever bothered to pay attention to, because it had been so _funny. _Broken bone popping out? Wrap that sucker up! Knife stuck in an eyeball? _Don't pull it out _no matter how tempting it may be. You were supposed to bandage _around _the knife and wait for a real doctor to take a look at it, could you believe that? And hey, fingers cut off? No worries, those can be sewn back on! It had been the best class ever. Patti had laughed and laughed and laughed while the other students had squirmed uncomfortably every time that Ms. Nygus had clicked over to a new "visual aid" slide.

First rule of surviving an abdominal injury: _Don't try to shove the guts back in! _

(The second rule was _don't touch the spaghetti-guts with your hands _but too late, Patti's hands had been right there when her guts had started spilling. Oh well. No big deal. She was _fine _now anyway.)

_Abdominal _was a four-clap word. _Abdominal Evisceration! _Patti made a new song. Kid said that it was _redundant, _you couldn't say _abdominal evisceration, _that was stupid.

Patti didn't know what _redundant _meant, but she didn't care. Now she was starting to feel sad. All she wanted was for Kid to laugh at one of her songs again, but he seemed determined to stay miserable.

Liz curled up beside her on her bed, and read to Patti from _The Wind in the Willows._ Patti liked books about animals. Patti liked getting visits from Liz and Kid. Patti didn't like that Kid had stormed out of Patti's hospital room after he had called her _redundant _and had left Liz to read to her alone.

Liz was on one side of Patti, which meant that Patti was asymmetrical. For the first time ever ever, Patti understood why Kid didn't like being asymmetrical. Being asymmetrical meant having only one person on one side of you, when you wanted two people on either side of you instead. It was better that way. Safer. Having two people meant having symmetry, and having symmetry meant that you were safe.

Patti frowned and wriggled her toes beneath her bedsheets and frowned deeper. "Kid doesn't like Patti's songs," Patti said.

"Probably because they're horrible," Liz said.

"He doesn't like Patti's scar."

"Patti…"

"Does Kid think that Patti's ugly? Now?" She sniffled. "Because of the scar?"

"No, no, of course not!" Liz said quickly. "He's just freaking out about things. You know how his brain works."

That wasn't true. Sometimes Patti didn't know how Kid's brain worked, because he was stupid, and Patti sometimes didn't understand stupid people very well.

Patti slept for a long time. Then she got sick. That wasn't fun. Then the doctors said that she couldn't have scrambled eggs anymore, either. No more eggs and no more bacon. Patti had to keep staying in the hospital because yummy things kept making her tummy feel bad.

Kid tried to stay with Patti, but he was always fidgety and sad and upset. Patti knew that Kid was sad because when Patti was in the hospital, he and Liz had to be asymmetrical. Patti felt like she was asymmetrical even when Kid was with her, though. It was a bad feeling. And it wasn't getting any better.

Patti felt unbalanced.

One time, Patti was alone in her room. She fell asleep. Then she woke up. When she woke up, Soul was sitting beside her bed. Patti smiled when she saw him. "Hi, Soul."

"Hey, Patti."

"Wanna see Patti's scar?"

"Uh, that's okay. You already showed me once, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah." Patti grinned up at him. "Y'know what?"

"What?"

"Patti's scar is waaaaay better than yours. 'Cause Patti's scar is symmetrical."

Soul stared at her. "Well, at least now I know that Kid's mental health problems are contagious."

Patti frowned when Soul said Kid's name. She couldn't help it. Just thinking of Kid made her feel frowny and unbalanced now.

Soul noticed Patti's frown. "There's something bothering you, huh." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yep," Patti said. But she really didn't want to talk about Kid. So she talked about the other thing that was bothering her instead. "Patti can't eat a lot of yummy things anymore. The doctors say that's because there isn't as much spaghetti inside of Patti as there used to be."

"Uh… Okay," Soul said. Then he scratched at his neck and said, "Listen, Patti. I kind of came here because I wanted to talk to you about Kid."

Patti frowned again.

"He's really wound up about what happened to you, and he's not getting better. So, I just… Uh, I kind of just wanted to talk to you about it, because I've been where you've been, you know? That time when I got hurt real bad, that time that I got _my _scar, I remember how Maka got all freaked out about it. Like her head got all screwed up, and she kept blaming herself, and she got all emo about everything and just wouldn't get over it. And I know how horrible this sounds, but I started to, uh, I started to feel really pissed off at her, you know? Like, I'm the one sitting here trying to heal and you have to go and turn this into some huge drama about _your _guilt and it's starting to piss me off, right? I know it wasn't cool of me to feel that way, but I did. Even when I was trying to be cool about my scar and everything, and I was trying to get _her _to see that I was cool about my scar and everything, it just made her feel worse, and then _I _felt worse for making her feel worse, and then… Well, you know. You and Kid are kind of doing the same thing right now, I think."

Patti looked at Soul for a long time. Then she shook her head and said, "Me an' Kid are different."

"But Patti, you-"

"No, listen," Patti said. "Me an' Kid right now are like you and Maka after that time you got hurt. Soul is right. We're just the same. But what happened before is different. What happened to you and me is different. You got hurt because you were protecting Maka." Patti rested her hands on top of her smiling tummy. "Patti got hurt because she was just being careless. Patti got hurt because she was stupid and wasn't thinking about bad things that might happen and wasn't paying attention and changed too early and now Patti can never eat bacon ever again and stupid Kid thinks it's all his fault but really it's all Patti's fault and now Kid is sad all the time because of Patti and-" Patti's voice broke, and she started crying. "'M sorry," she hiccupped at Soul, reaching up to wipe the tears from her eyes. " 'M sorry," she repeated again, sniffing back boogers. Crying-boogers were the worst.

"Uh, I didn't mean to make you cry," Soul said.

"'Sokay," Patti sniffled. She used her hand to wipe away her tears and her boogers again. Then she looked up at Soul and asked, "So how did you an' Maka stop feeling icky with each other?"

"Uh…." Soul scowled for a moment at nothing in particular. "We talked to each other," he finally said. "Maybe you and Kid should do that too. Just don't ask Professor Stein for help. Trust me. That's a bad idea."

"Did you really just talk to each other?" Patti asked, skeptically.

"Er… Maybe there was yelling and hitting and a werewolf and some other stuff involved, too," Soul admitted. "But, uh… The point is, uh… Sorry. This is so uncool. I'm sorry, Patti. I guess I came here to give you advice because I once went through what you're going through right now, but now that I think about it, uh, I don't really have any good advice to give, since I was pretty uncool about it when it happened to me, too."

Patti smiled up at Soul. "Thank you, Soul."

"For what?"

"For talkin' to me," Patti said. "Even if you kinda suck at giving advice."

Soul shrugged nonchalantly. "I figure that us Death Scythes ought to look out for each other, y'know?"

Soul left then, and Patti was left alone. She played with her teddy bears. She tried not to think about bacon. She wondered what she should say to Kid when he came to see her later, because she knew that he was coming to see her later. Finally she got bored and fell asleep again.

When she woke up, Kid was there. Patti blinked and saw that he had moved a chair from the side of her bed around to the foot of the bed. He was seated in the chair, in the exact center of the room, aligned with the exact center of Patti's bed, watching her anxiously.

That was a bad sign. Patti knew that when Kid was feeling kinda-sorta okay, he was able to sit by the side of her bed all right, even if it meant that he wasn't in the center of the room. But when Kid got upset or nervous, he needed symmetry more badly. The more upset and nervous he got, the more symmetry he needed. Because symmetry made Kid feel safe. If Kid had moved the chair from beside Patti's bed to the center of the room, that meant that he was really, really upset.

"Hey, you're awake," Kid said, trying to sound casual.

"Mmm-hmm," Patti said. She didn't bother to ask where Liz was. She figured that her sister had probably told Kid to come and talk to her alone. Or more likely, she had threatened him with violence if he refused to do so.

"Patti," Kid said, "I have been discussing matters with Liz, and with my father, and with my therapist, and with my psychiatrist, as well as with that old woman with the fifty-six cats in her house down the street from us, who as it turns out gives surprisingly excellent relationship advice. I believe that I have some things that I want to say to you. I have written them down in order to ensure that I articulate them correctly." Kid unfolded a piece of paper in his lap. " 'Dear Patti,' " he began reading. " 'How are you? I trust that you are not well, or else I would not have to be writing this letter to you while you are still in a hospital. Recently it has come to my attention that you- ' "

Patti laughed.

Kid glared at her. "What's so funny?" he snapped.

Patti immediately stopped laughing. He had _never _asked her that question before. He had never been angry at her for laughing at him before, either.

Apparently Kid saw something on Patti's face that suddenly made him feel bad. He crumpled up the paper that he was holding and said, "Patti, listen to me."

" 'M listening."

"There are some things that aren't funny, all right? Like you getting hurt. That absolutely is not funny."

Patti frowned at him. "Are you gonna get angry because Patti made up those songs and because Patti maybe kinda sorta likes the way that her scar looks?"

"You are oversimplifying things, but in a sense, yes. I do not appreciate you making light of your injury with those songs and I wish that you would stop subjecting me to them."

Patti's frown deepened. "What do you want? Do you want Patti to be _sad _about her scar? Do you want me to cry about what happened instead of make up songs about it? Do you want me to start folding toilet paper and leveling picture frames and moving chairs around a room when something bad happens just like _you _do?" Patti sat up fully in her bed – which hurt and made her feel dizzy, but she didn't care – and yelled at Kid harder than she had ever yelled at him before. "Maybe my way of dealing with bad things is _better _than your way of dealing with bad things! Didja think about that? Huh?"

Kid stared at her. "Patti, I know that your way of dealing with stress is generally quite a bit healthier than my methods. I would know that even if my therapist hadn't told me the same thing yesterday. That's one of the things that I admire about you. But…" Kid bit at the exact center of his lower lip. Then he uncrumpled the paper in his lap. He looked down at it, apparently reading through it quickly, searching for the right thing that he needed to say next. Then he looked up at Patti and said, "Sometimes, however, I fear that your attitude is _too _laid-back regarding many things, Patti. The first and most important of which is your personal safety."

Patti leaned back in her bed and sighed.

"And I find it very upsetting when I listen to you making light of your injuries," Kid continued, more quietly now, "because I fear that it indicates that you still do not take seriously what happened to you that night. Patti, this thing… What happened, it… It was so stupid… It shouldn't have happened…" Kid's voice trailed off, as if he was afraid to continue.

"It's okay," Patti told him, as gently as she could. No more yelling. "You can say it. Say the truth." She sat up again, looking straight at Kid. "Say it. I won't get angry. Promise."

Kid took a deep breath. "You were reckless, and careless, had no regard for your own safety, and failed to take our mission as seriously as you should have. And because of that you nearly died. You nearly died right in front of _Liz, _Patti. Do you have any idea the hell that you put your sister through? Do you have any idea how devastated she would have been if we had lost you?"

"And what about you?" Patti asked, raising one eyebrow at him.

Kid shook his head. "I am prepared to accept the death of any of my weapon partners at any given time. I admit that I would be rather humiliated, however, if any of my weapons ever died such an atrociously stupid, avoidable death as what almost happened to you that night. So, yes, Patti, I would have been upset too. Which is why I want you to stop being so reckless. I find it very upsetting that you care so little for your own safety and even further upsetting that you care so little about what sort of an impact your loss would have on your sister and me."

Slowly, Patti smiled at Kid. "Kid… Thank you."

He stared at her. "Come again?"

"I'm happy that you said the things that you just said." Patti's grin widened. "I'm happy that you're not blaming yourself anymore 'cause it really was all my fault and it was stupid and I'm sorry and I'll never do it again. Okay?"

Kid took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay," he said.

Then there was a long, long silence.

Finally Kid pushed back his chair and stood up. "Well. Er. I'm glad that we could have this talk."

"Wait," Patti said.

He stood by the side of her bed, asymmetrical, waiting patiently.

Patti looked up at him skeptically. "Kid really isn't blaming himself anymore? Really?" Normally Kid blamed himself for _everything _that went wrong on their missions, and Patti knew for a fact that he had been crying and blaming himself a lot for what had happened to her, because Liz had told her about it. Had he really gotten over himself already? Was his therapist really _that _super-duper awesome good at fixing the craziness in his head?

Kid looked down at Patti and said, "My therapist says that I blame myself too much," he said.

Ah-ha. He hadn't actually answered Patti's question. Patti knew what that really meant. So she reached out for Kid's hand and said, "Let's make a deal."

"All right."

"Patti is gonna be more careful and take missions more seriously as long as Kid is gonna stop blaming himself for and bein' sad about Patti's scar because Patti's scar looks like a smile and is perfectly symmetrical and really really awesome."

Kid smiled and squeezed Patti's hand. "I promise," he said.

"You'd better stop being sad about Patti's scar," Patti threatened, "or else we're never gonna be able to do pervy things ever again. Not if you're gonna be all emo every time that you see Patti's tummy."

Kid laughed, then. It was such a beautiful sound to Patti's ears. "I promise," he said again. "And you are correct, Patti. It is indeed a lovely scar."


	6. Democracy At Work

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 06: Democracy At Work**

Prompt: Voice ((troika+Death))

* * *

Death was used to the way that Kid and the girls would frequently drop into the Death Room unannounced, coming and going as they pleased. He didn't particularly mind the way that Kid acted as if he already owned the place – after all, that would be true eventually. Which was why Death instantly knew that something was _different, _the day that his son and the girls showed up beneath the guillotines and then actually hesitated before coming in. Kid coughed and knocked on the side of a guillotine. "Father, may we have a word with you?" he asked.

Death couldn't even remember the last time that his son had bothered to ask permission before entering. Normally he just waltzed right in and immediately demanded his father's attention.

_Oh_, Death suddenly realized. This must be that thing that Spirit and Sid were always talking about, the way that the kids would suddenly get all humble and respectful, right before they were about to ask for Something Big.

"Any time, any time," Death sing-songed, in response to his son's question. Oh, _this _was going to be interesting. Kid had a strangely determined look about him, as if building up his courage toward something. Patti was hanging onto his arm and grinning cheerfully, even more cheerfully than usual. She was practically glowing. Liz, on the other hand, was actually standing a step behind the other two, her arms crossed over her chest, looking, in stark contrast to her sister, even grumpier than she usually looked.

"Father, the three of us have thoroughly discussed the matter," Kid began, "and we've decided to purchase a pet."

"Oh, _really? _That's wonderful!" Death bounced up and down happily. "But do you have any idea how to cat-proof a house?"

"Ah, not a cat," Kid said quickly.

"_I _wanted a cat," Liz grumbled. "A nice fluffy cat, like normal people have. Or maybe a dog. A cute little dog that I could dress up in tiny cowboy boots and adorable little hats, like _normal people _do with their pets."

Patti smirked at her sister, smugly. Death was beginning to suspect what that meant.

"You're not getting a cat?" Death asked his son. "I always imagined you as a cat person."

"Are you serious?" Kid looked aghast at the thought. "I can't deal with a pet that sheds. Anyway, Patti came up with a far superior suggestion for a pet. And we've even already found one that we'd like to adopt. Her name is Stephanie. She's terribly clever. She can open soda bottles, play ping-pong, and draw pictures. Harvard was using her for some useless scientific research, but they've already agreed to sell her to us for an exorbitant enough price."

"And," Death said, "Stephanie would be a…?"

"Of course, our ability to provide adequate care for Stephanie depends on several contingent factors," Kid continued, completely ignoring his father's question. "The biggest issue being, of course, the fact that we're often _not home._ Because you keep sending us out on missions." He paused long enough to catch his breath, and then Death realized that the Big Request was just seconds away. "So we need guaranteed access to a reliable pet-sitter. Somebody who doesn't get out much, and doesn't have much more important to do anyway. Also, it _is _still your house, so…"

"…I do _not _have nothing much more important to do anyway," Death said, trying to sound angry. He really wanted to laugh, though.

"I don't see what you do _here _that you couldn't also do back at the house," Kid countered, cool and logical, "or that you couldn't do while feeding and playing with Stephanie. That's all that you would need to do. Just drop in twice a day, give her some attention, and… You know. Pet-sitting stuff."

Death was less impressed by his son's argument than he was by the puppy-dog eyes that Patti was giving him. Puppy-dog eyes cute enough to make even a god weak in the knees.

"We really can't go through with this without your help," Kid said. "Harvard's not going to go through with the deal if they think that we're going to be absentee pet owners."

"But you _are_ going to be absentee pet owners."

"Right, which is why we need a pet-sitter, and you're the most perfect person for the job." Kid really wasn't going to back down on this one. "Also, you're family. And soon Stephanie will be part of our family, too. So you have to help take care of her. Please, Father."

"Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaase," Patti said.

Liz scowled and looked away from them both. "Should've been a cat," she grumbled. But she had clearly been outvoted on the pet issue, as her sister's suggestion must have been the one that caught Kid's fancy. Death could see that now.

Finally, Death sighed. "All right, all right, all right. I suppose I could-"

"YES!" Patti shouted, jumping up and down and waving her arms triumphantly. "Whoo-hoo! I WIN!"

"Excellent!" Kid clapped his hands with satisfaction. "Great. Wonderful! I'll call the contractors right now, and they can have the octopus tank installed by tomorrow."

"The… what?" Death tilted his head at an angle, studying his son intensely. "The _what_?"

"Octopus tank," Kid sighed dreamily, stars in his eyes.

"Octopus tank," Liz repeated, curling her lip with disgust.

"Father, you're going to _adore _Stephanie," Kid went on. "She has the exact same number of suckers on each tentacle. And they're so evenly-spaced, too! Harvard sent us some preliminary photographs, I can get them to you tonight if you'd like to see them."

"Kid," Liz said, "I know that you're all googley-eyed over her tentacles and everything, but are you _sure _that Stephanie is on the up-and-up?" She was desperately trying one last tactic to stop the inevitable. "I mean, if she's smart enough to draw pictures, then maybe she's smart enough to spy on us, right? What if there's like, an octopus witch, and she uses Stephanie to spy on us?"

Kid waved her concern aside. "Shibusen killed the last octopus witch over three hundred years ago, and there hasn't been a new one active since then. Of course I looked that up, Liz. Of course I thought about that."

"Ding-dong, the witch is dead!" Patti sang. Then she laughed, fully relishing her victory over her sister. She took Kid's arm again, and pulled him back toward the guillotines. "Call the tank guys now, call the tank guys now!" Patti urged, dragging Kid out of the room. "Hurry, hurry!"

Liz watched them go, then turned toward Death and said, "It could have been worse, I suppose. _His _first idea was a tarantula. Then Patti started in with this octopus thing, and…" She shrugged. "Democracy rules. I was outvoted."

"But at least you made your voice heard," Death said, grasping for straws. He worried about how unhappy Liz seemed about the whole octopus thing. On the rare occasion when Liz and her sister were at odds about something, then Death's entire family felt unbalanced.

"No, I don't think so," Liz countered. "Neither of them listened to me at all. And you know how Kid gets with the whole not-listening thing." She frowned. "Democracy sucks. But oh well. Maybe when the damn thing dies, I can convince Tsubaki to make those freakin' octopus bread thingies out of it."

"There, there." Death patted her shoulder with one enormous hand. "I would have voted for your kitty-cat."

"Thanks," she said. She smiled at him, with a sort of relaxed familiarity that not even Spirit or Sid, Death's most trusted and closest partners, ever allowed themselves to show around him. Because both Liz and her sister were family now, and because Kid considered them family, _they _considered themselves family, and now Death considered them family too.

Liz's eyes then lit up with the light of a sudden realization. "Wait a minute. You're serious? You would have voted for a cat?"

"Well, I do like kitty-cats."

"You should have _gotten _a vote, because you're going to end up taking care of it the most!"

"What do you mean, 'the most'?"

But Liz ignored this question, already busy pulling a pocket mirror out of her purse and frantically scratching numbers into it with one of her long fingernails. "Kid. _Kid_. Don't call the contractors yet, we have to do a recount!" She smirked down at the mirror. "Tell Patti that she forgot about the absentee ballot."


	7. How to Survive the First Date

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 07: How to Survive the First Date**

Prompt: Chaos ((troika+rivals))

* * *

It was a rare day that Liz, Patti, and Kid were dismissed from school before sunset. Usually they had training after class, or a last-minute mission assignment, or extra work from Kid's father to deal with. But today there was none of that. Liz was looking forward to getting to go shopping during normal daylight hours, before the stores in Death City actually closed for the night. She and Patti were going shopping together, but not before they had to walk Kid home first. That was all right, though. Liz didn't mind being able to spend a little bit of time with him before she and Patti were free to enjoy the rest of their afternoon without him.

The three of them crossed the brick courtyard in front of Shibusen, hand-in-hand. Other groups of students were milling around, laughing and chatting. Patti said something, and Kid laughed. Liz wasn't paying attention to what Patti said, though. She was slowly starting to become aware that eyes were watching her. Six pairs of eyes, to be exact. A group of younger girls on the far side of the courtyard had been watching Kid and his partners since they had begun descending the stairs down to the courtyard moments before. Liz turned her head and glared at the girls. Now what? Was one of the younger students going to challenge Kid to a duel or something? One of the girls met Liz's glare and returned it with her own. _Uh-oh. _Then she stepped toward Liz, and began walking resolutely across the courtyard. The other girls followed her lead.

Kid saw them, too. He stopped in his tracks. So did Patti and Liz.

"Uh-oh," Patti giggled. "Looks like they wanna do a duel with us."

"No," said Kid, peering carefully at the lead girl as she approached. "There's no fighting intent in her soul."

Liz elbowed Kid. "Stop spying on people's souls."

"Liz, I'm not spying," Kid insisted. He let go of Liz and Patti's hands, then frowned, squinting at the lead girl as she approached again. "Her wavelength is full of envy right now. That's odd."

Liz suddenly realized what exactly the other girl was after. She wasn't about to challenge them to a duel – at least not a duel of physical combat. Liz sighed wearily. This happened every now and then, especially with the younger, stupider, more arrogant little girls in the lower grades. That was all right, though. Patti and Liz had long ago developed a foolproof strategy for dealing with situations like this. "Hey, Kid," Liz said. "I didn't want to tell you this, because I knew that you were going to freak out about it, but now I've changed my mind and I think that you should know. Today I noticed that some of the candelabras in the third floor of the east wing were slightly crooked."

Kid's head snapped around toward Liz, his eyes widening with alarm. "Liz, are you serious?"

"I'm pretty sure. They looked pretty crooked to me. I can't really tell without a level, though."

"I have a level," Kid said. He had two levels, actually, as he always kept one in both of the front pockets of his pants. Kid whirled around and began running back across the courtyard, instantly forgetting about the girl who was walking straight toward him. "_I'll be back in a minute!"_ Kid shouted over his shoulder as he ran.

Liz figured that he would be back in two, possibly three hours. She watched Kid run away for a moment, then turned her head back toward the girl who was still marching fearlessly toward herself and Patti.

The girl stopped right in front of Patti. She glared at Liz. "Did you just make him run away? Did you do that on purpose?"

"Yes," Liz answered smoothly, "because I wanted to do this without him hanging around and interfering. Now let's get this over with. What do you want?" Liz hadn't failed to notice the oversized metal cross hanging from the other girl's necklace, or the cross earrings on her ears. That meant that she was the religious type. _Great. _

Liz didn't like religious types. They tended to have funny ideas about gods and even funnier ideas about how humans and weapons should interact with gods. Liz had nothing but contempt for the way that religious types understood God, especially now that Liz knew that God was a lunatic who collected kewpie dolls and banjoes from around the world and his son was an even bigger lunatic who liked to fold toilet paper triangles for hours on end and who was turned on by symmetrical lingerie and who gave amazing oral sex. Liz didn't like to think of Kid or his father as divine beings – it was kind of hard to, especially when she'd seen Kid naked so many times and especially when she'd seen firsthand what an utterly terrible father Death so often was – and yet these nutjob religious types kept insisting that Death and his son were supposed to be revered and worshipped by humans. Or whatever. Liz inwardly laughed at their stupidity.

The girl rolled back her shoulders and stood up straight, defiant, craning her neck to be at her full height. Unfortunately she was still only as tall as Liz's shoulders. But with her five glowering friends behind her, she still managed to look mildly intimidating. "I am Lenore Van Rensselaer," she stated, flipping a lock of her perfectly curled, strawberry-blonde hair over her shoulder as she spoke. "Of the Manhattan Van Rensselaers. You've heard of us, yes? My father was a Death Scythe before he retired. My grandfather was Lord Death's personal Death Scythe, as was my great-great-grandfather, and my great-great-great-grandmother before him."

"Great," Liz said, rolling her eyes. Patti laughed.

Lenore ignored Patti. "I would like to formally request that you-"

Patti laughed again. "You're never gonna be Kid's partner!" she said. " 'Cause he's crazy and 'cause you're a musket."

Lenore wasn't taken aback by this retort. "Ah, so you _have _heard of me," she said. Then she smiled up at Liz, unnervingly. "I am aware that the young Death would not wish to take me as his weapon. I have no interest in him as a potential partner for me, either."

_Oh great, _Liz thought. _Here it comes._

"I would like to formally request," Lenore began again, "that you two cease your sinful, ill-begotten _relationship _with the young Death, so that I and others more suitable for his affections may court him instead."

By now the other students milling about the brick courtyard had begun to notice the confrontation happening between Liz, Patti, Lenore, and the other girls. Slowly the other students began to drift toward them, forming a loose circle around the girls, murmuring with whispers.

"_Pffffffft!" _Patti's shoulders shook with laughter, as she clapped her hand over her mouth, struggling to contain it. Liz narrowed her eyes and stared down her nose at Lenore. "What was that about 'sinful' and 'ill-begotten' again?"

"She said she doesn't want us to fuck Kid anymore 'cause she wants to fuck Kid instead," Patti clarified, helpfully.

Lenore's lip curled with disgust. "See? This is what I mean. You two are vulgar, classless, _lowborn _white trash. Not only have you enticed the young Lord Death to engage in sinful debauchery with you, but you would have him committing the sin of bigamy as well! Have you no _shame_?"

"Whores!" one of the girls behind Lenore suddenly shouted. Then she went back to cowardly silence again.

The gathering crowd gasped.

Liz tapped her foot impatiently. "You don't actually understand what 'bigamy' is, do you?"

"Excuse me?" Lenore snapped.

" 'Bigamy' only refers to marriage, and we're not-"

"Filthy sluts!" Lenore spat. "That is exactly what makes you unacceptable as Lord Death's partners! You care nothing for decency or morality! You've seduced a divine being into engaging in immoral behavior outside the sanctified bounds of a true marriage!"

Liz suddenly had to struggle to stifle her own laughter. She still had a hard time thinking of Kid as a divine being, especially in light of the fact that something like an asymmetrical hangnail could reduce him to tearful hysteria in an instant.

Lenore apparently saw that Liz was trying not to laugh, however. That only made her angrier. "This is no laughing matter! You arrogant bitch. How _dare _you pretend that you're good enough for him! You have no lineage, no class, no morals, no proper education, and no sense of respect or common decency. You make a mockery of Death and everything that he stands for! It is because _you two _lead him astray that the young Death is unable to properly collect souls and unable to properly pass his classes here. I demand that you cease your repugnant relationship with him this instant!" Lenore took a deep breath, building toward her big finish. "If the young lord Death wishes to continue to keep you as his weapons of choice, then I will respect his decision to do so. But even if you _are _his weapons, neither of you has the right to engage in any further lasciviousness with him. Death deserves a proper courtship with a proper woman. Therefore I demand that you rescind your claim to a relationship with him immediately!"

Silence. The watching crowd held its breath, expectantly.

Liz turned toward Patti. "What do you think, Patti?"

"Ummmmm…." Patti ticked off on her fingers. "She called us sluts and she said that we were trailer trash and she said that we were doin' bigamy even though we're not." Patti held up her fingers. "That's three bad things she said." Patti grinned. It was a rather terrifying grin. "That's really super-bad so now we gotta do _that _to her, right?"

"You're right," Liz said. "I don't like to resort to _that_ if we don't have to, but…"

"What? What is this, now? Are you two threatening me?" A metallic glint shone in Lenore's eyes. "Do you two intend to fight me for his hand? Is that it?"

"No no no no no," Liz said quickly, waving her hands. "We're not going to fight you. Actually, we're going to do exactly what you just asked us to."

Lenore blinked, confused. "Excuse me?"

"If you would like to go out on a date with Kid, then fine," Liz said, "you can go ahead and go out on a date with him. Patti and I aren't going to stop you or get in your way. We are now, officially, totally hands-off Kid. Completely hands-off," Liz said, raising her hands for emphasis.

Lenore stared at them. "Are you mocking me?"

"No, no!" Liz insisted. "Listen, if you want, you can even take him out on a date right now. Patti and I were just going to dump him off at home and go shopping because we were tired of dealing with his bullshit today anyway. So if you want to take him out on a date, tonight's your night. I really recommend that you take him out tonight, though, because it's probably going to be a while before he has any more free nights like this."

Lenore still glared at Liz and Patti suspiciously. "You are serious."

"Completely serious," Liz assured her. "Patti has a mirror in her pocket and you can call Kid back out here right now if you want to ask him out."

Patti pulled her small mirror with the giraffe stickers on it out of one of her enormous pockets. "Here you go!" she said, handing the mirror to a stunned Lenore.

Lenore took the mirror gingerly, as if expecting a trap. "You are only asking me to call the Lord Death right now because you are confident that he will reject me, aren't you," she said, still not dropping her guard. Her friends glared silently at Liz and Patti. The watching crowd around them murmured in anticipation of what was about to happen next.

"Nah, he's not going to say no to a date with you," Liz said with a shrug. "I told you, Patti and I don't care. We were going to ditch him today anyway. And he knows that we won't get jealous if he goes out on a date with somebody else. It's an open relationship."

"An open relationship?" Lenore seemed shocked at the idea. "You two have led the Lord Death even further down the path of debauchery than I thought. How revoltingly sinful." She sneered at Liz and Patti, then finally looked down at the mirror in her hand and began to dial with the tip of her finger.

Lenore's friends and the gathering crowd watched with silent, baited breath.

Lenore's sneer vanished and was replaced with a charming, pretty smile. Liz could hear Kid's voice as he answered the mirror. "Liz, you are _completely wrong _and I just double-checked fifty of these candelabras and they are _not _crooked at- Oh, you're not Liz."

"Lenore Van Rensselaer, Class Northstar," Lenore said. "Your partner has generously allowed me to borrow her mirror so that I may speak with you."

"Is this an emergency?" Kid asked, the alarm clear in his voice.

Lenore shook her head, her hair waving prettily as she did so. "Oh, no no no no no," she said. "I have heard that you were available this afternoon, so I would like to humbly request that you join me for a coffee and a trip to the cinemas afterwards. I would very much like to spend some time with you, Lord Death, although I assure you that my affections for you are chaste and pure and that you have nothing to fear in terms of me having ignoble intentions."

Silence from the mirror. Liz watched Lenore, silently. Liz was aware that most of the gathered crowd was watching _her, _silently.

Finally, everybody heard Kid's voice coming through the mirror. "Okay," he said. "That sounds like fun. Are you outside with Liz right now? I need to finish checking a few of these candelabras, and then I'll be right out. See you."

Liz saw the mirror in Lenore's hand go dark, signaling the end of the call. Lenore immediately grinned up at Liz triumphantly. The watching crowd gasped. Liz knew what they were all thinking. They were all thinking that they had just witnessed Liz and Patti being humiliated.

They couldn't have been more wrong. The fun hadn't even started yet.

Lenore was clearly relishing her illusion of victory. "It appears as if the Lord Death has not been so completely seduced by you two after all," she said, handing the mirror back to Patti and then triumphantly flipping another lock of hair over her shoulder.

"Duh. I told you that he doesn't care either way." Liz sighed and held out her hand. "Now give me your cell phone."

"Excuse me?"

"You do have a cell phone, don't you? You're going to need it. Now give it to me. I can't in good conscious let you go out on a date with Kid without being prepared." Liz still held out her hand impatiently. "Come on. I'm trying to help you."

Patti pulled her own cell phone out of her other enormous pocket. It, too, was decorated with giraffe stickers. "I got the numbers!" Patti said, handing the phone to Liz.

Liz took the phone from Patti, and showed it to Lenore. "Look," she said. "If you're not going to give me your phone, then here, take Patti's phone and make sure that you program these numbers into your speed dial. You'll need Kid's therapist, his psychiatrist, his lawyer – make sure you get the lawyer's Blackberry and his home phone too – our insurance agent, the fire department, the police department, and the FAA's Nevada hotline in case Kid acts like an idiot and takes Beelzebub into a no-fly zone again and you end up being chased by F-16s."

Lenore stared at Liz. "…What?"

"You _are_ taking Kid out on a date, aren't you?" Liz snapped, impatiently. "You need to be prepared. I told you: Therapist, psychiatrist, lawyer's Blackberry, and lawyer's home phone should be the first four numbers on speed dial in your cell phone. You're definitely going to want the fire department and the police department on there as well. Our dates usually end with me having to call all of those numbers and _fast_. By the way, how good are you at hand-to-hand combat? Do you know how to disarm him if he comes after you – or somebody else – with a pair of eyebrow tweezers?"

"Didja wanna take him to Deathbucks before the movie?" Patti asked. "Uh-ohs. That's bad. You shouldn't do that."

"Yeah, Patti's right, that's a bad idea," Liz said. "Better to skip the coffee and go straight to the movie. It's better to keep him in dark places as much as possible because then at least he can't see people's eyebrows. Oh, by the way," Liz said, "he's already been banned from every movie theater in Death City and most of them in Carson City and Vegas as well. I'd recommend that you take Beelzebub and cross a couple state lines before you go into a movie theater with him. His reputation unfortunately precedes him in most places around here."

"An' you need to get to the movie super-early," Patti said, "so that he can sit in the exact center of all of the seats. If he can't sit in the exact center then bad bad bad things are gonna happen."

"Now listen," Liz said. "If he gets upset about his hair and tries to kill himself again-"

"Wait, WHAT?" Lenore gasped.

"Calm down, just listen to me," Liz said. "The minute that he throws himself on the ground and starts crying, you need to call his therapist right away. Therapist first, then psychiatrist. Don't try to deal with it yourself, you're an amateur. If he tries to crawl into a dumpster, that's okay, just let him go through with it and try to get the therapist on the phone so that he can talk Kid out of it."

"Unless," Patti said, "he tries to kill himself by crawlin' into one of those dumpsters where you push the button and it all goes crrrrrrrrrush-"

"Oh yeah, I remember that night," Liz said. "That was one of our better dates, actually. At least we didn't blow up the movie theater that night. I remember because he was trying to kill himself because he realized that his hair was parted slightly to the left and _not _because he was ashamed of having just destroyed the movie theater. Normally when he tries to kill himself at the end of a date it's because we just blew up the movie theater and he's beating himself up about it."

By this time, Lenore's jaw was hanging open. Her friends' jaws were hanging open. The gathering crowd was staring at Liz and Patti with utter awe written all over their faces.

Liz waved her hand in front of Lenore's face. "Hello? Earth to Lenore? If you're not going to program these numbers into your own phone, then here, just take ours." Liz forcefully placed her cell phone into Lenore's trembling hand. "You're going to need this."

Lenore folded her fingers around Liz's cell phone, her face still stunned and disbelieving. "You-"

"Hi, Lenore," Kid said. He had finally finished checking the candelabras in the third floor of the east wing of the school and was now standing at Liz's side. He glanced down at the cell phone in Lenore's hand. "Oh, good. I see that Liz has properly debriefed you about our dating safety measures."

"You kids have fun, now." Liz said, slapping Lenore on the shoulder.

"Bye-bye, Kid!" Patti said, waving enthusiastically. "Liz an' I are gonna be home tonight so you can bring Lenore over for a foursome if you want!"

Lenore flushed bright red, her face twisting with anger. "You filthy-"

"They're just joking," Kid said, taking Lenore's hand. "Patti knows that I don't do foursomes because there's no way for me to be in the center of three other people. We would need a fifth person to join us." Kid glanced down at Lenore's hand that he was holding. "Uh. Lenore. If I might ask, who else were you planning to ask out with me?"

"What do you mean, who else?" Lenore asked. "My Lord Death, I had hoped that just you and I might be able to spend some time getting to know-"

"What?" Kid said. His eyes widened with panic. "I can't walk all the way to Deathbucks with just you holding my right hand! Who's going to hold my left hand? And how could you ask me out to a movie if you aren't going to bring anybody to sit on the other side of me? I can't sit next to just one person in a movie theater – it would be asymmetrical!" Kid whirled his head from side to side, casting his panicked gaze over Lenore's watching friends. "Could one of you-?"

Lenore's friends ran away, terrified. Most of the crowd that had gathered to watch Liz and Patti's confrontation with Lenore also scrambled away as quickly as possible.

Liz and Patti stood aside, watching Lenore standing and blinking stupidly while Kid melted down, still holding her hand. "It's no good," Kid moaned, "it's no good, I'm such a failure, I can't even go out on a date with just one person-" He began to sink down to this knees, then suddenly froze, his eyes widening. He jumped back into a standing position and glanced over Liz's shoulder. "Hey, BLACK STAR!" he shouted.

Liz turned and saw Black Star and Tsubaki crossing the courtyard toward them. Apparently they had managed to miss all of the drama from moments before. "Yo, Kid!" Black Star said, waving. "What's up? Who's the chick?"

"BLACK STAR I NEED YOU TO GO OUT ON A DATE WITH ME!" Kid shouted, frantically. "COME HERE AND HOLD MY OTHER HAND!"

Black Star and Tsubaki froze. "What?" Black Star asked.

Patti clutched at her stomach and laughed. Liz turned to Black Star and said, "He needs you to save him. This is a matter of life and death."

"Oh-ho, so a god needs to beg the great Black Star for help?" Black Star said, grinning. "No problem! Saving puny people who are smaller and weaker than me is what the great Black Star does best!" Black Star strode over toward Kid and grabbed Kid's other hand. "Now where are we going and seriously, who's this chick?"

"This is Lenore, and we're going for coffee and a movie," Kid said, apparently much calmer now that he was finally in the center between two people with both of his hands being held. Then he finally stepped forward, and began walking away from Liz and Patti. Black Star strode happily alongside him while Lenore, an utterly shellshocked expression on her face, was dragged along behind them. "Come on," Kid said. "We have to hurry if we want to make an eight o'clock showing of any movie."

Liz and Patti watched the three of them walk away. Tsubaki tapped Liz on the shoulder. "What just happened?" she asked.

"Lenore happened," Liz said. "After tonight, she probably won't even happen again." Liz grinned. "Well, I'm glad that I gave her my cell phone. She's definitely going to need it tonight if they've got Black Star with them."

Patti laughed. "Movie theater's gonna bu~urn!" she sing-songed.

Liz laughed too, because she knew that there was at least a ninety percent chance of Lenore's date ending in fire. Or possibly worse.

This happened every now and then, especially with the younger, stupider, more arrogant little girls in the lower grades. That was all right, though. Patti and Liz had long ago developed a foolproof strategy for dealing with situations like this.

They merely allowed Kid to go out on a date with anybody who asked him for one.

Nobody ever, ever came back to ask Kid out for a second time.


	8. Dare Disturb the Universe

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 08: Dare Disturb the Universe**

Prompt: Life ((troika+Death))

* * *

It had all started out so innocuously.

A quick trip to the Death Room, like they did at the end of every mission, to give a report. And also, in this particularly depressing instance, to deliver a handful of innocent souls – collateral damage, courtesy of the bastards whose souls Liz had relished devouring in the end – to Lord Death. And at the end, when all the official business had been said and done, Death had held out his enormous hands toward his son, ever the insufferable dork, and had said, "Now give your old man a biiiiiiiig hug!"

"Uh." Kid had stepped away from him, clearly not in the hugging mood.

Fortunately, Patti had stepped up to bat. "Patti gives hugs!" she had exclaimed, wrapping her arms around the old death god.

"Thank you, Patti. You're so cute. Waaaaaaaay cuter than my son, who is still very, very cute."

Kid had rolled his eyes and ignored the bait. Liz, however, had been unable to stop staring at the way that the bottom of whatever passed for Death's body had kept swirling around her sister's feet, and how his strange, shadowy arms had flowed around and _through _Patti's shoulders as he had returned the hug.

Then they had gone home.

After three days away, the mail had piled up. Kid went straight to work sorting through it. "Bill," he said, contemptuously, tossing one envelope aside. "Bill, bill, bill, court summons, bill, IRS audit – what, _again?_ – bill, bill, _Cosmo _for you," he said, tossing the magazine toward Liz, "and NRA newsletter for me."

He then retreated back into the house, newsletter in hand. Liz followed them deep into the east wing of the house, and into the library. (God, but she still loved the fact that she lived in a house with a _library. _Not that she read much, but didn't that just sound unbelievably classy? And a library with a fireplace, too! Just like in a movie!) Liz watched Kid curl up on a chair and open his magazine, while Patti hummed to herself and started a fire in the fireplace.

Liz hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether she wanted to spoil the peaceful scene. But then she realized that she simply had to. There was a powerful, important question that had been looping around endlessly in her brain ever since she had seen her sister hugging Lord Death, and now she knew that she wouldn't be able to relax until she had found the answers that she needed.

_Obsessive thoughts, _Liz thought wryly, sitting down in another chair across from Kid. _Puzzles that won't leave your brain alone until you can figure them all out. God, this sucks. Is it always like this for him?_

"We have to talk," Liz said. She addressed Kid directly, but meant her words for Patti as well. Patti, for her part, sat down on the floor in front of the fireplace, poked the start of her fire rhythmically with the fireplace poker, and watched them both with wide-eyed interest.

Kid looked up at her and closed his magazine. "Yes?"

"Your dad…"

"Has no respect for personal boundaries, yes, I know," Kid said.

"No, I mean… Um. His feet." Liz took a deep breath. "He doesn't _have _any feet, does he."

Kid stared at her. Then he said, "Define 'feet'."

"Things that you could give a pedicure to."

"Oh. In that case, well, no." He tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair. "I'd say what he has going on down there is more like… Hmm…."

"A stem," Patti said. "He's like a biiiiiiiiiiiig flower," she said, holding out her arms, "with a stem."

Kid snapped his fingers. "Yes. That's it exactly! Patti, you're a genius."

Patti laughed, and let go of the fireplace poker long enough to clap her hands. "Gen-i-us, gen-i-us!" she sang. Then she laughed again.

But Liz didn't think that any of that was very funny. "So what about you?" she asked him.

"Excuse me?"

"Are yougoing to end up like that? With a, a _stem _instead of, you know, feet?"

Patti abruptly stopped laughing.

Liz stared Kid down, waiting for his reaction. For as long as she'd known him, he'd always been a more wholly human creature than not. Over the years, he'd even grown and aged at a normal human rate. He felt pain like humans did, despite his ability to heal. When he bled, his blood was as red as hers. According to every doctor they'd ever consulted, even his _brain _was a most unfortunately human brain, and in his case that truly was unfortunate, at least in terms of being able to develop very, very human disorders was concerned. Biologically, he was human through and through. He still had ten fingers and ten toes, two hands and two feet, hair and skin and even lines across the palms of his hands. Liz was intimately familiar with every detail of his anatomy, and she knew exactly how deeply human he truly was. Not just in terms of his body, but in terms of his heart and soul as well. Especially when they were intimate together, when he shared with her a side of himself that was more human than he ever allowed anybody else to see, not even their closest friends and teammates at Shibusen.

And Liz needed to know how long that was going to last.

Because he was, after all, a god. He would casually mention this fact quite frequently, in fact. Even if he didn't yet quite live up to the title. Yet.

And now that Liz had thrown her question out into the air, there was no taking it back. She could see in Kid's eyes that she had momentarily thrown him mentally off balance. But then he composed himself again, and answered quietly, "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean, I… I don't know." He met her gave evenly. "Do you not want me to end up like that?"

Liz bit her lip. She looked to Patti, who merely stared at her with one of the very, very few truly unreadable expressions that Liz had ever seen on her sister's face. Then Liz looked back at Kid and said, "No. I don't."

The weight of those words felt enormous as they fell from her lips. For a moment Liz felt her heart pounding in her chest, and she was suddenly struck with the absurd mental image that there was some great, unseen, omnipotent force staring down at her, and she was staring back up at it with her middle finger raised. And the who the hell did she think she was, daring to make such a selfish demand from the universe?

Liz felt afraid.

But Kid merely nodded calmly, acting for all the world as if she had just requested something utterly mundane, something no grander than _I don't want you to cut the crust off my toast _or _I don't want you to borrow my nail files anymore_. "All right then," he said. "I won't."

He made it all sound so easy.

Liz swallowed, still unable to shake the feeling that the eyes of God were watching her with great interest. "J-Just like that? It's that simple?"

"I don't know if it's going to be simple," Kid said. "But as long as you and Patti want to stay with me, then I'll stay with you. I swear that I won't leave you. In any way. And if that means keeping my feet, then that means keeping my feet. I won't _let _myself lose my feet."

"Or Beelzebub!" Patti suddenly interjected.

"Beg pardon?" Kid blinked at her.

"If you didn't have feet then maybe Beelzebub would leave us," Patti said. "But Patti likes Beelzebub. And Patti likes Kid's feet, too."

"Thank you, Patti."

Patti had long ago abandoned the fireplace poker. Now she sat on the floor in front of the fire, her legs curled up to her chest, rocking back and forth slightly, humming to herself. She looked like she was tuning out already, having finished her contribution to the conversation, preparing to retreat back into her own little world. Liz could sense, however, that her sister was still intensely paying attention to the conversation between her and Kid. It was something in the way that Patti's eyes were staying clear and focused, even though she was busily staring at her own knees.

"And your face," Liz added, quickly, turning her attention back to Kid. "I just… Oh God, Kid, I used to have nightmares about-"

"All right. All right. I can keep my face, too."

"But is your face ever going to wrinkle?" Liz suddenly asked.

"What?" Kid blinked at her.

"I mean…" Liz got out of her chair, stood in front of him, reached out, and grasped his hands in hers. "What's going to happen when Patti and I get old and wrinkled? Are you going to grow old with us? Or are you going to stay young and beautiful like this forever?"

Kid stared up at her. "I doubt that this is a matter that you need to be concerned about, Liz," he said. "Statistically, the odds of a Death Scythe surviving past the age of thirty are-"

Liz squeezed at Kid's hands painfully. "Yes or no?" she growled. "I need you to answer me, Kid. Are you going to grow old with me or not?"

Kid looked up at her, staring straight into her eyes. "What do _you _want me to do?" he asked.

Liz took a deep breath. "I want my man to grow old with me," she said.

He nodded. "Then I will," he said. "I promise."

Liz let go of his hands. "Can you do that?" she asked. "Seriously?"

"I'm fairly certain that I can make my body do whatever I want it to do," Kid said. "I am a god, after all. Father is the same way. I suspect that he could have feet and a face if he wanted to. He chooses to stay in his current form as a matter of personal preference." Kid smiled up at her. "I would be happy to grow old for you if you want me to. I can become young again after you are gone, anyway."

Liz sighed with relief. "Thank you, Kid," she said. "Thank you for keeping your feet and for making yourself grow old with me."

"Thank you," Patti echoed, looking up from her knees. "Patti doesn't want Kid to have a stem instead of feet, either."

Kid shrugged and turned his attention back to his reading. "Please don't act as if I'm making such a big sacrifice, especially about the age thing," he said. "As I said, the odds of either of you surviving past the age of thirty are-"

Liz reached out, grabbed the magazine right out of Kid's hands, rolled it up, and promptly bashed him over the head with it.

"Liz, what was that for?" Kid asked, more indignant than hurt.

"For being an insensitive immortal jerk," Liz huffed. She stormed out of the library, listening to Patti's laughter echo behind her.

* * *

_The final two chapters in this set will be uploaded next week. Thank you for all of the feedback and review so far!  
_


	9. How the Future Began

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 09: How the Future Began**

Prompt: January/The Beginning ((troika+Death))

* * *

It was another long day in the Death Room. Not that Kid's father seemed to mind, though. He sat happily at his little skull-shaped tea table in the back of the room throughout the entire day, occupying himself with matters of grave importance such as folding paper cranes and building a pirate ship out of Lego blocks. That left Kid to do all of the real work. Not that he would ever have thought of complaining, though.

Kid knew that he was being tested without having to be told as much.

Kid sat behind his skull-shaped desk in the Death Room, his papers stacked neatly in front of him, dealing with the Death Room's steady stream of visitors one by one. Kid's day had started with a meeting with Spirit, then with Sid, then with the chief of the Carson City police department (a meeting during which Kid was forced to apologize on behalf of his father and all of Shibusen for the shenanigans that three of their drunken senior students had gotten up to the previous night), then with three potential students who sweated through their entrance interviews, then with the school librarian who needed to request Kid's help dealing with a cursed book that had already eaten two students. Kid had told the librarian to leave the book with him and had then spent the rest of the afternoon struggling to compose a letter to the Chief Bibliomagician in the White House library explaining the situation and asking for her help. Kid spent a good thirty minutes writing an absolutely perfect "D" at the beginning of "Dear" before he was ready to move on to the "e." Two hours later, still unable to write an acceptable "e" with his hand, Kid finally gave up and called Sid, asking him to bring a laptop and printer up to the Death Room.

"I'll be right up," Sid said. "By the way, your three-o-clock is here to see you."

"I have a three o-clock?" Kid said, glancing down at his father's appointment book.

"You do now," Sid answered. "There's some guy from the Department of Education here to see you."

"Oh. Okay. Send him up," Kid said. He sighed and hung up his desktop mirror. Then he glanced over at his father, still sitting down at the little tea table on the far side of the Death Room, playing with his Lego ships and trying to pretend like he hadn't been paying careful attention to what Kid had been doing all day long. "Do you usually get visits from the Department of Education?" Kid asked his father.

"Once a year, somebody from the Nevada State Department of Education usually shows up, yes," Death answered. "Would you mind dealing with him for me today?"

"Of course I will, Father," Kid said.

"You're the best son ever!" Death gushed happily.

Kid tried to hide his happy blush. He knew that he was being tested today. He also knew that he was making his father proud. That was a good feeling.

Kid wished he didn't also know, however, that Father had asked him to fulfill his duties today not primarily as part of some sort of unspoken test, but rather out of sheer necessity.

The fight with Asura had wounded Kid's father more deeply than most of the public was aware of. Not even Sid or Spirit knew how much Kid's father still needed time to heal his invisible wounds. Father was nowhere near strong enough to endure a day's worth of official meetings, not yet. He had tried to delay dealing with his official business for as long as possible, but eventually even Death had realized that he couldn't keep shuffling around his appointment book forever. So Kid's father had asked Kid to take care of a day's worth of official business in his place. As the future Death, it was necessary for Kid to learn how to deal with these things after all. So Kid's father had spent the day sitting at his little skull-shaped tea table and watching Kid while Kid had dealt with all of the official meetings in Death's place.

Now Kid had only one meeting left to deal with before he could be finished for the day.

The man from the Department of Education was nervous about meeting with Death, although going to get lengths to not outwardly show it. But the confident way that he strode into the Death Room did him little good when Kid could clearly see the trepidation in his soul. His suit was neat and trim and his shoes were polished, but cheap. Kid could tell that they were cheap. The man's leather briefcase was scuffed and worn. Kid reminded himself to be nice. The poor man probably wasn't paid nearly enough to have to face whatever it was that he usually had to face on a daily basis. Bureaucrats never were.

The man paused when he entered the Death Room, his eyes briefly flickering toward Kid's father, who was sitting off to the side at his little skull-shaped tea table, intently absorbed in arranging his small armada of various giant robot action figures in an attack formation on the top of the table. Then the man's eyes flickered toward Kid, who was sitting in the exact center of the room behind his father's most intimidatingly enormous desk, his hands folded, waiting patiently for the man to approach him. "Welcome," Kid said.

The man stood in front of Kid's desk and reached over to shake Kid's hand. "Loren Strickland," he introduced himself. "I emailed you earlier about-"

"I don't check my email," Kid said.

"I've also called on the phone multiple times and left several messages with the secretary at your front office-"

"There is no secretary in the front office," Kid said. "Well, there was. She died rather gruesomely a few months back. We're still working on getting her ghost flushed out of the phone system. It was probably the ghost that you left your messages with. I apologize, but I never received any messages from anyone named Loren Strickland."

"Oh. Well then." Loren Strickland withdrew his hand. "I suppose I should explain myself from the beginning, then. I-"

"Stop standing," Kid said. "It's impolite. Sit down."

"But there's no- Oh." A moment before, there had been no chair behind Loren Strickland. Now there was one. Strickland sat down, cleared his throat, and then continued. "I'm the FES assigned to-"

"The what?" Kid interrupted.

"Field Education Specialist," Kid's father supplied helpfully, before turning his attention back to his toy robot battle. "Pew! Pew! Pew! Rrrrr rrrrr rrrrrggggghhhhh!"

"—The FES assigned to the Death City Independent School District this year," Strickland finished, raising his voice to talk over the sound of Kid's father providing his own sound effects for his toys. "I need a copy of your CSIP to submit to the State Board of Education for-"

"My what what?" Kid interrupted again.

"Comprehensive School Improvement Plan," Kid's father cut in again. "Remember, Kid? I asked you to do that whole thing last week."

Suddenly, a light bulb flickered on inside of Kid's brain. "Oh, _that _thing! Yes, I remember, Father. I completed it, as promised." Kid pulled opened both the bottom left and the bottom right drawers of his desk – even if he only needed something from one drawer, he absolutely had to open drawers on both sides of his desk in order to maintain the symmetry of his seating arrangement – and reached for the CSIP document that he had filed in the bottom right drawer.

"Excellent," Strickland said, reaching out for the document that Kid offered him. "I'll just take this and be out of your way, then. It's been a plea…" Strickland's voice died in his throat as soon as he took the document from Kid's outstretched hand. "This is… Er…"

"This is our Comprehensive School Improvement Plan," Kid said.

"But this is only one page," the man said.

"It only needs to be one page," Kid answered.

"And there's only one thing written on it."

"I know."

"It just says 'Cry havoc, and unleash the dogs of war.'"

"It's a good plan," Kid said.

"And it's written in _crayon_," Strickland went on.

"Yes, well. That would be because I dictated the document to Patti last night when we were playing Principal and Secretary. I couldn't very well write the thing myself, because my wrists were handcuffed."

"But—But—" Strickland stuttered. "But this plan does nothing to address your failure to meet AYP or NCLB accountability guidelines or-"

"Wait, we didn't make the Annual Yearly Progress benchmark this year? How could we have not made AYP this year?" Kid turned toward his father. "Father, I gave Professor Stein permission to vivisect any of our students that scored unacceptably low on the HSPE and I personally ensured that he communicated as much to the student body. There's no way that our test scores could have failed to meet the AYP benchmark."

"Oh, the HSPE test scores don't matter," Kid's father said. "I struck a deal with the Nevada Department of Education back in 2001. Death City Independent School District doesn't measure AYP in terms of test scores. We're measured based on how many of our students survive past October." Death shrugged. "Those idiot third-years who ran off on that suicide mission in Venezuela not only got themselves killed but also tanked our AYP numbers for this year."

"Not only did your school fail to meet your AYP goal," Strickland said, turning his head and his disbelief toward Kid's father, "but there's the other issue of your continued violation of federal law while hiring unqualified teachers to work in your classroom. Mr. Death, this is a matter of grave importance, so could you please put those silly toys down and speak with me seriously for a moment?"

Death suddenly turned his head and glared at Strickland. "I'm far too busy to concern myself with such petty matters as _non-binding _federal laws issued by a governing body that has only been around for one quarter the time that my school has. Pew! Pew! Pew! See?" Death smashed his robot toys together with his giant hands so that it looked like they were fighting each other. "As you can see, I am _far _too busy to deal with your silliness. You will have to continue to discuss this matter with my son. Kid is the one in charge of legal matters this year, anyway."

"I have nothing left to discuss with Mr. Strickland, though," Kid said. "According to human laws, if a school fails to meet an AYP goal, then that school has to write a Comprehensive School Improvement Plan and submit said plan to the State Board of Education. I already wrote the Comprehensive School Improvement Plan. Having submitted our plan to Mr. Strickland just now, I have fulfilled my obligation to submit the plan to the State Board of Education. Mr. Strickland has no more business here, so I suppose that he will be taking his leave of us now." Kid stood up and reached out to shake Strickland's hand. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Strickland."

Strickland hesitated a moment, as if unsure that he wanted to give up so easily. But Kid could see that the wiser part of Strickland's soul ultimately won out. Strickland shook Kid's hand and said, "Likewise." That was a lie, and Kid didn't have to be able to see Strickland's soul to know that it was a lie. But nevertheless, Loren Strickland finally opened up his briefcase, stuffed Kid's Comprehensive School Improvement Plan into it, then turned around and strode out of the Death Room.

Kid silently watched Strickland take his leave. Then Kid turned to his father and said, "He won't be back, will he."

"No. We only get a visit from an FES once a year. And it's never the same person two years in a row. They never come back." Kid's father shrugged. "Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned. Human laws are so very short-sighted and obnoxious."

"Human laws are unbalanced," Kid agreed.

Kid's father started to laugh, but suddenly his mask seemed to wince. He shrank for a moment, drawing into himself, but less than an eyeblink later was suddenly back to his full height, his enormous shoulders shaking with laughter. "Kid, Kid, Kid, you should have seen the look on the _last _one's face when she-"

"You're not healing," Kid said, daring to interrupt his father. He pushed back his desk chair, stood up, and glared at his father.

Death pouted. "I am too!"

"Then why does it still hurt when you laugh?"

"Kid, you don't-"

"You shouldn't have done it," Kid suddenly interjected, interrupting his father again.

Death scratched at his head, confused. "I shouldn't have done what?"

"Don't play stupid, Father. You know what I'm talking about."

A long, long silence spun between the two of them. Death loomed over Kid, his face an unreadable, blank mask. Finally Death said, "Goodness, I never would have guessed that my own son would say something so terribly ungrateful to the father who saved his life."

"I'm not ungrateful," Kid insisted, glaring up at his father and refusing to back down from the argument. "But that doesn't change the fact that what you did was wrong."

"Oh, _do _explain," Kid's father shot back.

A human boy would have quaked in terror if Death had spoken to him in that angry tone of voice. But Kid knew that he was a god and that he had every right to take his own father to task for this very issue. He was the _only _one with the right to do so. "You always taught me that a god was supposed to worry about the balance of the world more than anything else," Kid told his father. "You taught me that a god isn't supposed to be selfish. You taught me that it was important to cherish human lives but to never place the good of one person that you care about above the fate of the rest of the world. You taught me that sometimes gods have to be detached and that sometimes gods have to make hard decisions." Kid took a deep breath, summoning the courage to finish what he had started. "That's why what you did was wrong, Father. You should never have risked your own existence in order to protect me from Asura. What would have happened to the world if Asura had destroyed you? The balance of the world would have been destroyed, too, and without you it never would have recovered! _I _wouldn't be able to fix it. _I'm _not Death yet. You are. I was expendable in that battle. You weren't. As a god, you should have prioritized the balance of the world above the protection of one soul. But you were selfish and you risked yourself – and the balance of the entire world – because of your attachment to me. That is not what you taught me that a god should do. Not at all."

The dark holes in Death's mask of a face stared straight down into Kid's soul. "Is _that _why you think that I protected you?" Death said, his voice sounding utterly astonished.

Kid was taken aback. Of all the reactions that he expected his father to have, this surprised reaction was not one of them. "Asura said that you did it because it was your duty as a father, remember? But that shouldn't have been-"

"Asura was insane, and you're being silly," Kid's father said, suddenly reaching down to ruffle Kid's hair with one enormous hand, the eyes of his mask crinkling with an invisible smile. "I love you, Kid, but I would never put the good of any one soul, not even that of my own son, before my duty as a god. You are correct, that isn't what I taught you. And that isn't the reason that I saved you, either."

"Father…?"

"I chose to protect the balance of the world at all costs," Death said, "even if it meant risking an end to my own existence. _That _was why I jumped in front of you and protected you from Asura, Kid. Because _you _are the key to the balance of the world. You are this world's future, Kid. You are the only one who can protect and balance the world in my place. You have already proven as much to me many times over. And don't you dare try to tell me that you can't fix the balance of the world ever again, kiddo, because I happen to know that you _can _balance the world, even without me if it comes to that, and the sooner you start realizing that that's the truth, the better. So that is why I protected you, Kid. Because you're here now, which means that the world can move on without me. But not without you. The world needs _you_, not me, not anymore. That is how the balance has already tilted."

Kid stared at his father, eyes wide, lip trembling. "B-but Father, I can't-"

"Nuh-uh!" Death smashed one of his enormous fingers into Kid's lips, silencing him. "What did I just say? I don't want to hear you whining any more about how you can't do it without me or that you think you're not ready or any more of that melodramatic pity-party nonsense that you're always going on about. Besides…" The eyes in Death's mask of a face softened from their harsh, angular shape into a more gentle roundness. "It's pointless for you to worry about what might happen if I were gone, anyway. Because I'm not going anywhere, Kid. Not for a long, long time." Death wrapped his arms around his son and pulled Kid into a warm embrace. "I'm staying right here with you, and I'm not going to let anybody or anything – not even another kishin – keep me from watching my only son grow up. I promise, Kid."

Kid buried his face in his father's cloak, his cheeks burning with what might have been a blush of joy, but which was also at the same time a flush of humiliation. _Forgive me, Father, _Kid thought as he bit his lip to hold back his tears. _Please forgive me._ _I'm a hypocrite. I shouldn't have said those things to you. I'm the one who was selfish all along. I still am._

Kid wanted to balance the world. He wanted to protect the world. He wanted to become a great god because it was his duty and his obligation to the universe. He really, truly did want to become Death for all of those reasons. But more importantly than all of that, far more importantly than all of that, the real reason driving Kid was so much more selfish, so much more mundane than all of that.

_I'll do it for you, Father. All of it. Everything that I am, everything that I do, everything that I will be. All for your sake, Father. _

Kid didn't choose the world. He had chosen his father instead. He knew that this made him selfish. He knew that a god wasn't supposed to care more about one person – even another god – than the entire rest of the world itself. But Kid couldn't change the way that he felt. He wanted to become a god for his father's sake. He wanted to become a god because he knew that his father believed in him, because he knew that he absolutely could not let himself let his father down, because he wanted to a good son, because he loved his father so much that sometimes it hurt, because he wanted his father to be proud of him.

Those were the only things that mattered. Those were the things that drove him every day.

_Father. _All for Father. Everything for Father's sake.

Kid closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around his father, and did not say anything to his father. He couldn't. He didn't have the right words to say those things. He likely never would.

Maybe that was all right, though. Maybe Father could see all of that within Kid's soul, and maybe that would be enough.


	10. Never Ending

**There's a Method to This Madness**

Ten short stories about friends and family, written for 42_souls.

**Part 10: Never Ending**

Prompt: December/The End ((troika+students))

* * *

The call came in the middle of the school day, which was good, because that gave Kid a legitimate excuse to skip out of the European History class that he was failing anyway. Less good, however, was Liz's reaction when she heard the news.

"Not again," Liz moaned. She would have crossed her arms over her chest protectively and started shivering uncontrollably if she hadn't already been in her gun form. "Why does it have to be us again? We should be in class right now, not bailing out some underclassman idiots just because—"

"It's a poltergeist, Liz," Kid said impatiently. Beelzebub was moving fast and they had less than a minute before they were about to arrive at the student dorms in the middle of D-block. "This isn't about bailing anybody out. As a shinigami it's my duty to deal with poltergeists."

"But it's going to be some stupid kid's fault again!" Liz wailed. Her words made it sound as though she was angry, but the only emotion being conveyed in her voice was increasingly hysterical terror. "Poltergeists don't just _happen, _Kid! They have to be some dumb asshole underclassman idiot's _fault!_ And I don't see why we have to-"

"Oh, great." Kid had finally caught sight of the student dorms – or what was left of them. He quickly slowed down Beelzebub and then hovered for a moment, trying to size up the situation. One two-story apartment complex with an entirely collapsed wall. _Asymmetrical. _Kid's stomach churned queasily at the sight of it. There were dozens of students milling around on the street outside, looking confused and useless, but not too terribly panicked – yet. There were still human and weapon souls inside the building. Kid stretched his soul perception abilities, trying to sense if any of them were injured enough to be near death. None were. There had been no death recently in this place, either. Somehow the collapsed wall had managed not to crush anyone. But that didn't mean that anybody in or near the building was safe yet. Kid could sense the rotten souls of the poltergeists oozing all around the area. They were likely preventing the people inside the building from getting out and likely about to do something much worse to the structural integrity of the building at any moment.

"We're out of time," Kid said.

"So?" Patti asked.

"We have to move fast," Kid said, talking his partners through the plan that he was making up even as he lowered his center of gravity and sent Beelzebub screaming straight toward the collapsed wall and an opening into the second story of the building. "We're not here to get anybody out of the building. We're can't waste time trying to help any of the students until the 'geists are subdued." Kid hopped off his skateboard and onto the carpet in what was left of some poor students' living room. He pulled Liz and Patti out of their holsters and began gingerly making his way across the room. He noticed immediately that there was a television set lying on its side in one corner of the room, having apparently been knocked off its perch on top of a media cabinet. That was a bad sign. "Don't trust what you see with your eyes in here," Kid cautioned Liz and Patti. "Try to connect with my soul perception so that you can use it to aim if it comes to that."

"Roger wilcox!" Patti said. Liz made a terrified whining sound in the back of her throat that Kid took as affirmation that she had heard him.

"Good," Kid said. He stood still for a moment, turning his body in a complete circle, trying to focus his senses. "We need to- _Argh!"_

Of course Kid had seen the cheesy Joaquín Sorolla posters mounted on the undamaged wall of the room out of the corner of his eye when he had entered the room, but he stupidly hadn't expected the blue and red brushstrokes in the paining to suddenly leap out of the page and start strangling him. Kid dropped his guns and started scrambling with his fingers ineffectually at his neck, trying to get the impossible noose off him. Not that shinigami technically needed to breathe, but Kid suspected that he might not actually be able to survive a snapped neck, god's body or not. Thankfully the lack of air wasn't weakening him, but he was making choking sounds nonetheless and struggling so hard that he lost his balance and fell to the ground.

Kid's vision was completely filled with a panoramic view of the carpet for a moment. When he lifted his head enough to lift his gaze again, Kid realized that all of the furniture within the ruined living room had been instantly re-arranged. The posters were now on the ceiling, the couch was now on the wall, and a lampstand that had previously been on the far side of the room was now flying right toward Kid's head.

_This is going to hurt._

"HIIIIIIIIII-YA!"

Kid had scrunched his eyes shut in order to brace himself for the impact to his face, so he didn't see the tiny blonde girl jump over his head and karate-chop the lampstand in half. Or not so much karate-chop as bow-chop.

Elsie transformed her arm back into flesh and then turned toward Kid, grinning triumphantly. "Okay so like I saved you so does that mean that you have to grant me three wishes now?"

"Shinigami don't grant wishes," Kid said testily, pleased to discover that the Sorolla-inspired noose was gone from his neck. He stood up and dusted his pant legs off. "That's just an urban legend and _Elsie what are you doing here?"_

"This is my place," Elsie said. "That was Marty's poster that tried to kill you, though. I don't like Sorolla."

"So it's _your _fault that there are poltergeists all over this building!" Liz snapped, batting aside a flying vase as she stomped toward Elsie, momentarily too angry to forget that she was supposed to be scared. "Elsie, what did you do?"

Kid wasn't sure when exactly Liz or Patti had switched out of their gun forms, but he didn't think that it was a very good idea. "Liz, Patti, get back here! I need you to-"

But Elsie had already run to Patti and grabbed her in a terrified hug. "I didn't mean to!" Elsie wailed. "You have to help us! It's not my fault! I told Marty not to do it! But then the things started moving around and the bad thing with the lights came and then the whole wall went boom and then-"

"Duck," Patti said, managing to wrestle Elsie to the ground just in time for what surely had to have been nearly every utensil from the kitchen to go flying over their heads. Kid barely saw this happening, however, as Liz tackled him to the ground at the same instant, knocking the breath out of him. Kid heard a whistle of wind and then something enormous smashed right through one of the last undamaged walls in the room, hurtling to the street below.

"Duck!" Patti said, pointing across the ground and laughing at Liz and Kid.

"Ohmygod ohmygod that was our couch _did you see that that was our COUCH!_" Elsie squealed.

That was when the TV in the corner of the room suddenly popped itself upright, and turned on.

"Uh-oh," Patti said. "Goose."

"Liz, Patti, gun forms NOW!" They were back in his hands even before Kid had finished standing up. "Elsie, you have five seconds to answer me: Do you think you might know the source that's generating the poltergeists?"

"Yes!" Elsie responded, miserably.

"Then come with me. Show me the source." Kid wasted another moment glancing at the static starting to fill the television screen, then added: "And _run fast._"

Kid turned to run out of the room, then realized that Elsie wasn't following him. "Wait!" Elsie's voice called after him.

So Kid swallowed an obscenity and turned around, back toward the living room. "The TV's back on!" Elsie said, her eyes wide with a mix of excitement and terror.

"I know, that's why we need to run!"

"But I can't leave the TV! Marty's in there!"

"Oh, for the love of!" Kid smacked himself in the forehead with one of his guns. "Elsie, did Marty get sucked into the television?"

"Yes but now you're here and you can save him so we have to—"

"He'll be fine, Elsie," Kid said, a bit testily. There were far worse things that could happen to a Shibusen student than being sucked into a television by a poltergeist. Kid was beginning to suspect that Marty had probably done something to deserve it, too. _Serves him right, _Kid thought. "Elsie, listen to me. You and I are going to run out of this room _right now _and you are going to show me the source of these poltergeists _right away_. If you stay here any longer you're going to end up inside that television too!"

Elsie dithered for an infuriating moment longer. Kid was just about to holster Liz and Patti so that he could free up his hands to reach out and bodily drag her away from the ominously humming television, when the television screen suddenly lit up with an intense flash of white light. That seemed to goose Elsie enough to send her running toward Kid. "To the kitchen!" Elsie shouted. "It's right down the hall on your left!"

Kid turned around and suddenly he was on the opposite end of the living room again, back at the collapsed wall. "Dammit!" he hissed. The poltergeists had already managed to warp the space around Kid as easily as Kid could warp the space inside of his cloak. Kid tried to run across the living room again, toward the short hallway where Elsie was standing and waiting for him, when suddenly his legs were whipped out from underneath him. He fell, got up, and was right back where he had started again. This time, however, the television was on the ground in front of him, static-filled screen facing directly at him, blocking him from crossing the room again.

"_Get away from the TV!_" Elsie screamed.

"I have a better idea," Kid said. He squared his aim with Patti and shot out the television screen.

"Yay, I killed the evil TV!" Patti laughed.

Kid didn't feel very triumphant, however, because a second later he was suddenly standing in the center of Elsie and Marty's bathroom.

"Now where are we?" Liz asked, terror momentarily causing her voice to sound as high-pitched as Elsie's usually was.

"Now we're in a bathroom, that is an incredibly tacky shower curtain, and the 'geists clearly don't want us to get to the kitchen. Which means that we need to get to the kitchen." Kid bit his lip and forced himself to think hard, trying to come up with a plan. The poltergeists were controlling the space around him. He needed to find a way to make them stop controlling the space around him. Those really were some criminally ugly shower curtains. Kid shook his head and blinked, trying to regain his focus. And then the thought that he'd briefly had moments ago suddenly flashed back into his consciousness like a ray of light illuminating the darkness: _The poltergeists had already managed to warp the space around him as easily as he could warp the space inside of his cloak._

Of course. That was it. Kid couldn't believe that he was being so stupid! He was a _god_, after all. If some bastard poltergeists wanted to mess around with the fabric of space, then two could play at that game. If Kid could control the space around his body when he was wearing his cloak, then why couldn't he also control the space around his body when he wasn't wearing his cloak? If Kid's father could control the curvature of space enough to create the Death Room, after all, then surely Kid would at least be able to—

"_Kid, watch out!"_

Kid managed to shoot the bath towels and the hideous shower curtain at the same time, right before they were about to wrap around him, whether to attempt to smother him or tighten enough to crush him, he didn't know and didn't care. The shower curtain rod came crashing down to the floor at the same moment that everything in the bathroom began to rumble ominously: the toothbrushes, the handsoap, a bottle of lotion, a small forest of shampoo bottles on a shower caddy, a pair of razors jittering beside the sink. Kid realized that every loose item in the bathroom was seconds away from launching right at his head. Kid fumbled at the bathroom door, only to find that it was locked. "Shoot it out!" Patti was yelling at him, but Kid knew that he didn't have time. The poltergeists had completely seized control of the warp and weft of time and space surrounding Kid. He knew that if he couldn't take back control of the space around him, he was likely about to get his eyes skewered by a pair of flying toothbrushes.

_Liz, Patti, help me! I need a wavelength boost NOW! _Kid holstered his guns and reached out to press the palms of his hands evenly on both sides of the bathroom door.

"What are you doing?" Liz asked. Their souls were just beginning to resonate and Kid could feel her confusion at being suddenly holstered, and the way that her fear for the danger that he was in was internally struggling against her desire to believe that Kid already had a trick up his sleeve to protect himself with. Kid closed his eyes and concentrated on the rhythmic flow of the wavelengths of Liz and Patti's souls. _Good. _He felt the cool white paint on the bathroom door beneath the palms of his hands, and remembered touching the smooth red paint on the wretchedly asymmetrical gates that his father had warped the entrance to his Death Room with.

_Gate, _Kid thought.

Then he felt the poltergeists' souls immediately retreating, been forcibly pushed out of a space in which they were no longer welcome. Kid slowly opened his eyes and took a deep, hitching breath.

Nothing in the bathroom itself had physically changed, but the poltergeists were gone, and nothing was threatening to immediately launch itself at Kid's head anymore. Kid fumbled for the doorknob and opened the bathroom door, trying not to betray his exhaustion by trembling. On the surface there was nothing extraordinary going on in the bathroom, but anybody who could see souls would have seen Kid's wavelength expanded as far as he could push it, straining to function not just as a colorful indicator of his strength but also as a physical barrier protecting the space around him from the poltergeists. Kid could feel them hissing and slithering around the edges of his wavelength, and he didn't know how much longer he could keep using his wavelength this way. Nevertheless, Kid stepped out of the bathroom and into the small hallway that connected the living room area of Elsie and Marty's apartment to what Kid hoped would be the kitchen. He cupped his hands and shouted, "Elsie, are you still out here?"

"I'm in the kitchen!" Elsie's voice called back to him. "Hurry!"

Kid couldn't hurry. He moved down the hallway slowly, breathing heavily, straining with the effort of expanding the boundaries of his soul wavelength around him. At least he could feel the poltergeists fleeing away from him now. The cursed things were unable to enter the solid but invisible barrier around Kid and thus were unable to stop Kid's slow advance toward the kitchen.

Finally, he made it. Kid stepped into the kitchen and saw Elsie backed against the large refrigerator in the far corner of the room, wielding her half-transformed arm to defend herself from an attacking blender. Kid immediately pulled his guns out of their holsters and used Liz to shoot the blender. Elsie turned her head and saw Kid, then began screaming "IN HERE IN HERE IN HERE!" as if Kid weren't already in the kitchen with her. Elsie jumped up and down in front of the refrigerator and waved her arms frantically. "Marty put them in here!"

"What, exactly, did Marty put in your refrigerator?" Kid asked testily.

Elsie pulled open the refrigerator door and scrambled to grab at a large blue tupperware container, her tiny body trembling with panic. "Here here here!" she said, nearly throwing the tupperware at Kid. Kid wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't had the foresight to re-holster his guns a moment before.

Kid didn't have to open the container to know what was inside of it. Liz and Patti, connected directly to his soul and borrowing both his eyes and his perception abilities as they always did whenever they resonated with him, knew in an instant, too. "Ew. Gross," Liz said.

"Yyyyyyyyuck!" Patti added.

Kid sighed. "Elsie, what are you doing with these?" he asked. "Why did Marty keep them?"

"It's my fault!" Elsie sniffled, her normally high-pitched voice hitching even higher due to her tears. "We didn't know that there were going to be so many bad guys but there were _so many _bad guys and even though we killed them all there were so many bad souls and I couldn't eat them all at once 'cause my stomach hurt but Marty wanted them to count for my total so we took them home and Marty said they were gonna be okay as long as we kept them in the refrigerator and so we put them in the refrigerator but then it was Carly's birthday and a Trig had a party too and we just ate out a couple of days in a row and then we forgot about the souls in the refrigerator and we didn't know that souls were gonna go bad but I guess they went bad so ummmmm that's what happened."

Kid grit his teeth, reaching deep inside of his soul to summon the very last shreds of his patience. "Yes, Elsie," he said. "Damned souls are going to spoil after a few days even if you keep them in a refrigerator. That's why it's _against dormitory housing codes_ for any of you students to keep souls after the end of a mission. Any souls that you are unable to consume at the scene you are mandated to bring immediately back to me or to my father. Elsie, I know that you know that!"

Elsie's lower lip trembled miserably. "I'm sorry," she sniffled. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! But it was a hard mission and it was really scary and Marty said that it wasn't fair that we got all those souls but I couldn't eat them all so he just wanted to take them home so that I could eat them later!"

"But when souls spoil they start growing poltergeists like mold," Kid said. "If it weren't for you and Marty, this building would still be in one piece."

"I know," Elsie said. She stared down at her feet as tears dripped off her face and splattered onto the kitchen floor. "I know. I know!"

"I'm taking these souls to Father so that he can properly dispose of them," Kid said. "As soon as these souls are gone, the poltergeists should start fading. They may be able to linger for a few hours after I'm gone, though. I suggest that you and the other two souls that I still sense inside this building get out of here immediately. Wait until after sundown before you return. It should be safe then. We'll send work crews to start doing repairs in the morning."

"Wait. Wait!" Elsie trembled. "You can't do anything to make the poltergeists go away _now_?"

"I can't afford to spend hours wrestling poltergeists right now," Kid said. "I'm supposed to be in class." He glowered at her. "Elsie, you're a weapon. Stop panicking and start remembering your training. There are two more students inside this building and they probably need your help. So go help them, and then get out of here. Those are officially your orders, Elsie. Don't disobey me."

"But what about Marty?"

"He'll be back soon," Kid said, as he turned away from Elsie and began making his way back toward the ruined living room. Kid paused at the edge of the collapsed wall, summoned Beelzebub with a thought, and then took to the skies as fast as he could.

"Okay, so," Liz said as they flew, "I know that Elsie and Marty are idiots and they probably deserved what happened, but you were still an asshole about it."

"Kid is dicksauce!" Patti declared, frowning at Kid as hard as she could.

Kid could sense Patti's disapproving glare through their resonance even if he couldn't see it, with the girls still in their holsters. "Patti, I don't even know what that means," Kid said.

"It means that you don't always have to play the role of Monsieur Hard-Ass when you're talking to the underclassmen," Liz said. "And that speech that you gave Elsie at the end didn't need to be so harsh. You can be a little bit inspirational the next time that you have to tell a student to calm the hell down and start acting like a competent weapon again. It'll work better."

Kid bristled. Liz and Patti were never nice to _him _whenever he started crying and had to be reminded to start acting like a competent meister again.

"I heard that thought," Liz said. "And with you it's different. You never break down or start crying unless it's about something _stupid _like symmetry or whatever. Elsie had just had her partner sucked into a TV and her home destroyed and you basically told her that as soon as we left the poltergeists were going to start attacking her again. Look, I agree with you that Elsie's at that level where she has to learn to keep her chin up and start dealing with that crap. But you don't have to be so mean to her about it."

"It worked, though," Kid said defensively. "I sensed her running downstairs with the intent to rescue the others right before we left."

Kid sensed that Liz was tired of arguing, so she let the subject drop. Patti started humming to herself happily, having forgotten all about the reason that she had been angry at Kid a moment before. Kid took a deep breath and enjoyed the brief moment of quiet, flying with Beelzebub high above Death City, both hands still clutching the tupperware container that contained Elsie and Marty's spoiled leftover souls.

When Kid returned to Shibusen he handed the spoiled souls over to Father. By the time that was taken care of, classes were already over for the day, and Kid could tell that Liz and Patti were tired and drained from the strain of what the three of them had managed to pull off their resonance-shield earlier in Elsie's house. So Kid turned to Liz and said, "Do you want to go for a coffee?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea."

The three of them walked together to the nearest Deathbucks and took over a table in the exact center of the store, just where Kid wanted to sit. Once they had their drinks in their hands and Patti was already hard at work blowing bubbles in her hot chocolate, Liz asked Kid, "Do you think they got out of that building all right?"

"Who?"

"Elsie and those two other kids that you told her to rescue."

"I'm sure they're fine," Kid said. "If they hadn't managed to escape that building safely by now, I would have gotten a call about it."

Liz stared at him for a moment, then frowned. "Kid, don't take this wrong way, but you're starting to become as callous as your dad is when it comes to the lives of the other students. I'm not sure if that's a good thing."

Patti abruptly stopped blowing her bubbles.

Kid took a sip of his coffee, then said, "I'm not trying to be callous. But sometimes I have to be a god. That's all."

"I know, baby. I know. But I think that, god or not, you still could have handled Elsie better than you did today."

"She was all…" Patti frowned, thinking. Then she said, "She was all _tight. _Like when Patti's shoelaces are too tight. And that made her dumb. Like keeping those souls and forgettin' about them. Dumb."

"That's stress, Patti. Elsie and her partner are both under a lot of stress." Kid kept his face carefully neutral as he spoke. "I don't know what Elsie's total soul count was after her most recent mission, but before her previous mission she was up to eighty-seven."

"Oh," Patti said. She needed no further explanation. She knew what that meant.

Kid kept his face an unreadable mask. But inside, he worried. Two other weapons in Elsie's homeroom had accumulated ninety-nine souls that year. Neither of them had survived their attempts to take a witch's soul. And that was bad on several levels – bad for the school's reputation, bad for Father'sreputation, and bad for the morale in that entire classroom. If either Marty or Elsie were killed by a witch, that would be a nearly unfathomable disaster. Kid and his father badly needed somebody in that class to have a successful witch hunt, in order to balance out the failures. Actually, Kid wanted two successes in order to properly balance out the recent deaths. Two successes would have been ideal. Other than Elsie, however, there was nobody else in that classroom even remotely qualified to go after a witch yet. Kid wondered if he could ask Maka or Black Star to go after an extra witch soon, just to get the students to stop feeling so miserable about things.

"If Elsie becomes a Death Scythe, will you work with her, Kid?" Patti suddenly asked.

"No," Kid answered quickly. "But I'll send her and Marty to South America where the chupacabras will keep them busy and Elsie's hyperactive energy level will actually be of use."

Liz rested her head on her hand, asymmetrically, and smiled at him. "You've thought about this."

"It's been clear to both me and Father for a while that Elsie is probably going to make Death Scythe status soon, yes. If I didn't have faith in her then I wouldn't have left her alone with the poltergeists today."

"Blech, poltergeists," Patti said. There were some things that apparently even she found disgusting enough to be unfunny.

"What a way to end, though," Liz said thoughtfully. "Those poor souls in the refrigerator."

Kid laughed. "You think that spoiling in the back of some idiot's refrigerator is a worse fate than being eaten by a weapon?"

"Actually, yes. I do." Liz sniffed. "If _I _were evil I would much rather be killed and eaten by a gorgeous weapon like me than have my soul end up rotting and going to waste in the back of a refrigerator."

"Duly noted," Kid said. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind if you ever go insane on me."

Liz stared at him for a moment, then Patti leaned over and whispered loudly to her, "I don't think he's joking."

"I am not joking," Kid said. "It's important to have a contingency plan for these sorts of things."

"Wow. You really are being an asshole today," Liz said.

"Nuh-uh. He's not bein' an asshole," Patti said. "He's bein' a god."

"Thank you Patti," Kid said, pleased at the defense.

"All right. So." Liz took another sip of her coffee, then put it down on the table in front of her, eyed Kid carefully, and asked, "You have a plan in case we get a bad ending. But what's your plan for a good ending?"

"A what?"

"How are we going to end, Kid?" Liz asked him. "If you have it all planned out, then tell me – how are Patti and I going to end?"

Kid opened and closed his mouth, unsure how to answer this. Fortunately, however, Patti immediately came to his rescue again. "I know how we end," Patti said.

Kid and Liz were quiet, listening to her.

"Liz and I are gonna die," Patti said. "Someday. Maybe in a really awesome way. Maybe not. But we're gonna die. Kid won't. So Kid keeps going without us. And he's gonna be real sad when we die. And he's gonna miss us. But that's okay. Because he'll keep going. And because he knows how to make friends now so he'll make new friends. And they'll die. And then he'll be sad again. But then he'll make new friends. Because he knows how to be a good person now, so people will like him a lot, and he'll never be alone, because he'll always have more friends. And more girlfriends, too. Kid's gonna have a lot of girlfriends always because he's such a mess that he can't keep going without a girlfriend. Because Kid needs a girlfriend to throw him at a wall if he starts freaking out because he has to turn left too many times or whatever. And he won't ever forget any of the friends or girlfriends or Death Scythes that he has, not even when they die, and not even when he makes new ones, he still won't ever forget. And maybe he won't die but at least he won't ever, ever be alone. Just like his dad. Mr. Reaper has friends like Mr. Sid and Professor Stein and Mr. Albarn and Miss Azusa and Justin and Miss Marie right now, but he had different friends before, and he'll have different friends in the future. And Kid's gonna be like that, too. Always making new friends. And that's what not-dying means. It means a lot of sadness because you lose a lot of friends. But it means a lot of happiness too, because you're always making new friends, more friends than anybody who has to die could ever make, and because you'll never lose the good memories of your old friends either."

Patti stopped speaking, and fell silent.

And then, slowly, Kid began to shake his head. "That's not entirely true," he said. "I may have other weapons in the future, but there won't ever be anybody like either of you two."

"We know," Patti said quickly, and surprisingly nonchalantly. "Liz knows. Patti knows. But just because your other weapons aren't like us doesn't mean that you won't really really like them. Nobody is really like anybody else and nobody can ever replace anybody else, but that's okay, it's not about replacement. It's like Patti said. It's about making new friends. You don't forget your old friends just because you make new friends, and it's okay if your new friends aren't anything like your old friends. But you're always gonna need friends," she added, "Because you're just like your dad. Because you're smart in some ways and stupid in other way and just a really, really silly person. And you're so weird and silly that maybe you can't ever do things all by yourself, you can't be the next Mr. Reaper all alone, you have to have someone there with you to keep you balanced. That's why Mr. Reaper always has a weapon with him and that's why you have me and Liz now. Because you're too dumb to do things alone."

Kid took a long, slow sip of his coffee, contemplating this. Then, finally, he smiled. "That sounds like a good ending," he said.

Liz actually raised her coffee cup. "To a good ending," she said.

Patti raised her mug of hot chocolate. "To a good ending!" she echoed.

Kid refused to raise his cup. "Liz, _no," _he said. "You can't make a toast with these drinks or these glasses. This is completely inappropriate!"

Liz set down her coffee cup and glared at him. "You always ruin the moment," she huffed.

"I am not—"

"Do you hear that?" Patti interrupted him.

Kid strained his ears, trying to hear what Patti was talking about. He could hear the normal sounds inside the Deathbucks store, the sounds of people talking and glasses clinking and a few hands typing on laptops. And suddenly he could hear screaming, too. A faint, otherworldly screaming getting louder, and louder, and louder.

aaaaaaaaaa_aaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAH_!"

Marty managed to fall exactly in the center of the store, crashing down on top of the table that Kid and Liz and Patti were sitting at, splashing coffee and hot chocolate and pink ectoplasmic goo everywhere.

The entire store was silent, staring. Kid tried very, very hard to ignore the coffee splattered asymmetrically all over his clothes long enough to summon up a small iota of concern for the goo-covered student lying draped across the table in front of him. "Well," Kid said. "You're back already."

"Oh my god – oh my god!" Marty gasped, flailing around on top of the table, flinging goo everywhere. "P-P-Poltergeists! I think we have poltergeists!" He seemed to finally notice Kid standing there, which only made his eyes widen and his frantic gestures to become even more panicked. "You have to help Elsie! We've got poltergeists in the house!"

"It's been taken care of," Kid said, disdainfully flicking a fleck of goo from one of his previously-impeccable lapels. "Clean up and go home, Marty. Your detention will start next week."

The other patrons in the store were already returning to their business by the time that Kid finished his statement. The Deathbucks store in Death City had seen stranger things before. Marty blinked goo out of his eyes, staring at Kid, utterly confused. "Wait, what?"

"Go home, Marty," Kid repeated. Then he gestured to Liz and Patti, neither of whom looked too happy about the coffee all over their clothes. "Come on. We've got laundry to do."

The three of them walked home together, hand in hand. "So was that a good ending?" Liz asked, contemplatively. "I mean for Elsie and Marty."

"It was a good enough ending," Kid said. "Their apartment is ruined and I'm going to give Marty detention for a week. But they deserve those consequences. That's how the world balances."

"But Marty's back so now they got each other again," Patti pointed out. "So it's a good ending."

Kid squeezed Liz and Patti's hands and silently agreed with this. Whether his shirt was ruined or not – and it likely was – at least they'd all still gotten a good ending.

More or less.

* * *

_Well, that's the end of this batch of fics (no seriously you guys, there's no more need to keep adding story alerts at this point!) and I hope that you enjoyed them. :) C&C is much appreciated. Thank you for reading!  
_


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